Righteous Indignation

Hello, and thank you for listening to the Testing the Spirits podcast. The title of this episode is Righteous Indignation. We're also going to be talking about hate. Hate, is it bad or is it good? Hate must be bad, right?

Everyone knows that. Well, actually, it depends on the object. Hating sin is good and loving evil is bad, so it's really not as simple as most people make it out to be. But first, speaking about anger, again, most people would say anger is wrong.

And yes, most of the time when we get angry, most anger is not good. People get angry about things they shouldn't be angry about. Some people can't control their anger and how it comes out. The Christian should be able to practice self-control.

That's part of the fruit of the Spirit. So, we shouldn't be angry people, obviously, but at the same time, anger isn't bad. There is something called righteous indignation. The Bible says in Ephesians 4 .26, be angry and do not sin.

And even God gets angry. Psalm 7 verse 11 says that God is angry with the wicked every day. Have you ever thought about that, that God is angry every day? Probably most people wouldn't even believe that if you told them, and there it is in the Bible.

But quite frankly, in this age of apathy and indifference, we could use a little more righteous indignation from God's people, especially when there are so many so-called ministries these days. I mean, they are ministries, but so-called Christian ministries that call evil good and good evil.

I mean, that should make you angry, but it's a righteous indignation. And then when it comes to hate, I think it's safe to say, again, in general, when we think of hatred, we think of it as a bad thing, and generally it is.

But it all depends on what it is you're hating and why God hates sin, right? So if God hates sin, it's okay for you to hate sin. You should hate sin. But how many people hate sin? Some people love their sin, Jesus, you say, well, it's God, the father, and he's, he's got all the wrath and Jesus, Jesus has no hate, totally false.

Jesus, in Hebrews chapter one, verse nine, it says about him that he hates lawlessness. So love and hate, it's again, not that simple. If a preacher got up and he said that he hated people, I mean, that wouldn't be good, right?

And a lot of people would say, well, love this, hate the sin, love the sinner, love this. Yeah. Love the sinner, hate the sin. We'll get to that in a moment. But if a preacher got up and said he hated people, okay, that's, that's not good.

But if a preacher said he hated racism, I mean, nobody would blink an eye. If he said he hated some other things, the Bible calls sin, depending on the audience, he'd be in big trouble with some people.

But I think you get the point. And with this podcast, this is what we're doing, taking what people say and comparing it to the scripture. We're trying to get people to think a little deeper about these things.

Because one thing we all know, the world loves to say this about God's people, that Christians are what? Just all a bunch of haters. Well, you should hate some things, but I don't think God's people are haters.

The people saying that, the people of this world, they certainly hate certain things, right? They, they just don't hate things. They hate people. For example, many of them hate Donald Trump. I mean, I'm just saying, I'm not looking to get political, just proving a point.

The people who talk the loudest about how much they're against hate, they feel hatred too. And it comes out. Listen, everybody does. So we just need to make sure that as Christians, we have the mind of Christ.

So I think a lot of people would say, this is my guiding principle, even though this isn't in the Bible, love the sinner, but hate the sin. Some people don't like that because it's like a quote from Gandhi or something.

So it's not in the Bible. Gandhi said that, and that's not true. There are actually about 15 or 20 verses that say that God hates people, which is kind of a whole other subject. Like Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated.

I actually don't think that verse is saying that God hates Esau, the person, but it does say that God in the Psalms, that God hates all workers of iniquity. So that's kind of a bigger subject, but typically, generally speaking, love the sinner, hate the sin.

I realize that's not in the Bible, but generally speaking, that is a good way to approach it. I know there's going to be people that don't like that, but again, generally speaking, that's the right approach, but we should hate sin.

You can't hate sinners because that means you would hate everybody and you would have to hate yourself. So you're just not going to get me to say that Christians should hate sinners. I mean, that's a dangerous road to walk down.

And I don't think that's the way Christians view it anyways. Here's a few other verses, Psalm 119, 104, through your precepts, I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way. So the Psalmist writing under inspiration of the Holy Spirit says, I hate every false way.

And I, I can understand that sentiment, you know, false doctrine and just people leading others away from God and when it's intentional, yeah, I hate every false way. Romans 12, nine, let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil and cling to what is good.

So the Bible clearly tells us to be angry and do not sin. Ephesians 4, 26 to hate evil. Jesus hates evil. Hebrews one, nine, cling to what is good, hate evil, cling to what is good. Romans 12, nine. So it's actually, you know, based on all of that, it's actually not wrong to hate, but it depends.

Same with love, right? If you love Satan, that's bad. If you love evil, that's bad. But if you hate evil, that's good. But today we just have people, you know, very simplistic thought process. We just have people saying love is good and hate is bad, and people repeat what other people say.

And it's just very simplistic. And we need to dig a little deeper and think about this, that yes, some Christians should have a righteous indignation more than they do right now. And I think this is the problem that we have, that a lot of Christians these days are just, they're too comfortable.

They're too passive. They're too complacent. They should be getting angry about some things. And that's true for me. There's some things that I don't hate enough. I mean, my own personal sin, I don't hate it as much as I should.

I can say that I do hate it, but if I really hated it as much as I should, I would do it less. I think that's true for everybody. We should have righteous indignation. We should be getting angry about some things.

But yeah, a lot of Christians are just passive and there's kind of like, and they don't really get too upset, even though there's evil and injustice and false doctrine everywhere. Listen, if we really love God, then shouldn't we hate those things that oppose God and opposes well, I'm not talking about people, but I'm saying the, the, the things the devil is doing, the things that the enemies of God are doing.

If we love God, shouldn't we hate those things? If we truly love the truth of God's word, then shouldn't we hate lies? If you really love something, you would naturally at the very least dislike its opposite or whatever works against that.

So for example, just a non-biblical example for a moment, if you love working in the yard and you love having your lawn looking nice, you hate weeds, right? So if we love what is right for me as a pastor, I love and have a passion for sound doctrine and God's truth.

I hate false doctrine. Those who follow the channel, you know that I hate false doctrine, but there are other things that I should hate more than I do. And there's some things I should love more than I do.

The great commandment in the law is to love God with all your heart, your whole mind and soul and strength. Do we do that perfectly? No. Should we love God more than we do? Yes. And we want to continue to grow.

And we have to think about these things. So this is partially why this podcast exists, to take kind of what just people say, the normal things people say, and kind of test that against the word of God.

Oh, hate is bad. Well, yes, but not always. So take what people are saying in the name of God and comparing it to the word of God. That's my goal. So instead of getting angry, kind of leave you with something that I think is good advice for all of us.

Instead of getting angry because somebody cuts you off in traffic, instead of getting angry about something like that or holding some grudge against someone when it was probably half your fault anyways, instead of spending that emotional energy, feeling anger and hatred over things like that, we want to hate evil.

We want to hate sin. So here's my goal in 2024 and whatever, whenever someone listens to this, this is, this is my goal. I think it is good advice. We should love what God loves and hate what God hates.

That's the goal. That's what we want to do to have the mind of Christ. Love what God loves and hate what God hates. Even Jesus get angry, right? Jesus flipped over the tables of the money changers. Jesus didn't get angry over dumb little things, but when people turned the house of God into a house of merchant merchandise, Jesus got really angry.

He didn't lose his cool. Instead, he sat there beforehand, fashioning a whip. So losing your temper, losing control. Yeah, that's bad for sure. But Jesus, he had anger. Matter of fact, there are verses that explicitly say that Jesus at times was angry.

Mark chapter three, verse five, for example, and I think of some of the things being done in the name of Christianity today, how many people are just peddling the word of God trying to sell miracles for money and just taking advantage of the sick and the elderly.

It should make you angry, and I hope it does righteous indignation. So that's what I'm going to leave you with. Love what God loves. Hate what God hates. Ephesians four, 26 and 27 says, be angry and do not sin.

Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Thanks for listening. And until next time, may the Lord be with you and have a great day.