The Imprecatory Psalms & Bible Verses That Say God Hates People

Moore's Corner Church

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Let's start with this question. Can we pray for God to destroy the wicked?

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Can you pray to God and ask God to destroy or take care of your enemies?

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I mean these are some of the subjects that we're going to be looking at because that's exactly what happens with the

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Old Testament in the imprecatory psalms. You see the psalmist praying for God to destroy his enemies.

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So a lot of Christians don't, I suppose there's some people that aren't even aware that's in the

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Bible and then there's some people who hear about this and they don't really know what to do with verses like that.

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And then maybe the question, does God hate people? Well I think we would say, no,

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God does. God loves people. He doesn't hate them. But does God hate anybody?

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Well, the Bible actually says he does. And it's like, well, wait a second. What do you do with verses like this?

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So that's what we're going to be looking at tonight. The subject of the imprecatory psalms, as well as those, if you want to call them the quote unquote hate passages.

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So there's about 15 to 20 verses in the Bible that talks about God hating people.

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And it's not just that he hates what they do. It says he hates them. So that just kind of runs contrary to everything that we think we know.

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Also the imprecatory psalms, what is an imprecatory psalm?

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Let's just start out with the definition. The imprecatory psalm, we know what the psalms are. Okay. So an individual psalm is like a poem, a prayer, or a song that makes up the book of psalms.

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So the imprecatory psalms are when, usually it's David or one of the psalmists, he's calling upon God to curse his enemies, calling upon God to destroy his enemies.

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And someone might think, yeah, but how does that line up with Jesus saying that you should love your enemies?

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Is Jesus contradicting the old Testament? Was David wrong? I mean, he's writing under the inspiration of the spirit.

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So there's again, a lot of, a lot of people don't know what to do with these passages. So in my desire to kind of teach the whole council of God, and because a lot of churches won't touch this subject with a 10 foot pole, right?

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So we don't want to ignore it, but again, what do we do with it? So let me just start out.

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We'll start with the imprecatory psalms and I'll just give this a definition. This is from the website, gotquestions .org.

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They say that an imprecation is a curse that invokes misfortune upon someone.

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So an imprecatory psalm, they are those psalms where the author imprecates, if that's, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, not a word we use much, that is he calls down calamity or destruction, and he calls down God's anger and judgment upon his enemies.

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This type of psalm is found throughout the book. So the major imprecatory psalms are psalms 5, 10, 17, 35, 58, 59, 69, 70, 79, 83, 109, 129, 137, and 140.

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And I think there's actually a few more than that. So this isn't just one verse, but there's actually a lot of talk like this in the

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Old Testament. Who's ever run across something like this? I think of that statement David makes, remember, he says,

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I hate my enemies with a perfect hatred. Who's come across that verse?

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And you might think, well, that doesn't sound very Christian, does it? Psalm 11, verse 5 says, the

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Lord tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence, his soul hates.

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So there's actually quite a, quite a bit passages, verses that talk about this.

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The article continues when studying the imprecatory psalms, it is important to note that these psalms were not written out of vindictiveness or a need for personal vengeance.

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Instead, they are prayers that keep God's justice, sovereignty, and protection in mind.

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God's people had suffered much at the hands of those who oppressed them, including the Hittites, Amorites, Philistines, and Babylonians.

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These groups were not only enemies of Israel, they were also God's enemies.

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They were degenerate and ruthless conquerors who had repeatedly tried and failed to destroy the

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Lord's chosen people. In writing the imprecatory psalms, the authors sought vindication on God's behalf as much as they sought their own.

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Now, let me just ask this question. You don't have to raise your hand if you don't want to, but somebody might, because I know somebody in this room has done this.

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Now, whether it's right or wrong, we'll get into that. Who has ever prayed, God, curse this person, or even kill them, or take care of them, do some,

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God step in and just deal with that person in a harsh way. Who's prayed something along those lines?

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Okay, so one, two, three, four, five, there's a few hands like, you know, like,

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I don't know if I want to, and there's a few people not admitting it, so. Now, if somebody, let's say somebody cuts you off in traffic and you pray,

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God strike that person, like, that's wrong, okay. I think we get that. Yeah, count it, okay.

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You can try that, yep. I suspect during World War II, there were a lot of Christians praying to God, Lord, take care of this

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Hitler guy, take care, you know, during, you know, after 9 -11, Lord, destroy

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ISIS, destroy Al -Qaeda, and probably wouldn't find any Christians who would object to that.

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Well, there's always somebody, but I think you get the point that if it's your own personal enemy that somebody wronged you, you shouldn't react that way, but there are people in this world where, yeah, it may be okay to pray that, so it's kind of a complicated subject.

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There's going to be a variety of opinions, but just to interrupt this article, instead of looking at the imprecatory

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Psalms as calling down God's judgment on, you know, David's enemies, it's more that they were

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God's enemies. It wasn't just David's personal enemy, they were the enemies of God, because we know what

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Jesus said. Jesus said, love your enemy, right? Everybody knows that, so Jesus is either contradicting the

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Old Testament, which some people believe that Jesus came and corrected the old, that's not what was going on, or there's something else at play, so I think it's, it comes down to this.

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If someone is your personal enemy, if somebody has wronged me, maybe I wronged them, and they have something against me.

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If someone is my personal enemy, I should try to pray for that person, love that person, overcome evil with good from personal enemies, but when someone is the enemy of God, or if somebody is maybe killing

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Christians, that's a different story, and I think that's what the imprecatory

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Psalms were. It wasn't David, you know, lashing out at his personal enemies.

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David's enemies were his enemies, but they were also the enemies of God. Okay, so I think there is a difference there.

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Marcus. I've struggled with this with this for decades, when a soldier and a police officer, we've,

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I mean, you remember the Revolutionary War, World War I, World War II, the

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Civil War, and there's murders and so forth.

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If someone came into this assembly and thought they were going to wipe us out.

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Yeah, sorry, you had different plans for them. I know, well, it's not out of convictiveness, and I wish that wasn't so, but yeah, thousands and thousands of soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen and police officers that have had to kill or were killed.

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Yeah, yeah, it just, it's such a broken, fallen world. Now, just to prove that this isn't completely an

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Old Testament thing, where you have people saying things, Lord, I hate them with the perfect hatred.

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Here's what the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 16, 22. So 1 Corinthians, pretty sure that's

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New Testament, right? Okay. The Apostle Paul, here's what he said. 1

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Corinthians 16, 22. He said, if anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let them be what?

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Accursed. So if anyone doesn't love Jesus, let them be accursed.

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What's he saying? They are. They are accursed. Now, is he saying, let all unbelievers be accursed?

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I don't think he's saying that. I think he's saying people that are fighting against the gospel, people who hate the name of Jesus and are working against his ministry, let them be accursed.

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So you also see Paul, John, and even Jesus himself referring to false teachers as children of the devil.

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That's not exactly the same thing, but it's close. So I don't think this is actually solely an

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Old Testament thing, but the article continues while Jesus himself quoted some of the imprecatory

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Psalms, for example, in John 2, 17 and John 15, 25. He quoted those.

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He also instructed us to love our enemies and pray for them. The New Testament makes it clear that our enemy is spiritual, right?

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We wrestle not against flesh and blood. It is not simple therefore to pray the imprecatory

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Psalms against our spiritual enemies. So according to gut questions, you can pray these

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Psalms, not against your personal enemies, but against your spiritual enemies. That's what they say.

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But we should also pray with compassion and love and even thanksgiving for people who are under the devil's influence.

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Then it says the bottom line is that the imprecatory Psalms communicate a deep yearning for justice written from the point of view of those who had been mightily oppressed.

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God's people have the promise of divine vengeance. You know, vengeance is mine, saith the

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Lord. And then he quotes Luke 18, 7 through 8, where Jesus says, and shall not

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God avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him, though he bears long with them.

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I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. And in that statement,

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Jesus recognizes that fellow believers are praying to God right then and there that God, you know, you know, stick up for us, avenge us.

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And Jesus doesn't say it's wrong. He's saying, you know, God will avenge. So Marcus.

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You mentioned spiritual where we wrestled on against flesh and blood, against principalities, against powers, against spiritual wickedness in high places, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.

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Those are people against the rulers of the darkness of this world. And there's one other against spiritual wickedness in high places.

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But there are, these are human beings. Yeah. All right. Any, any questions so far?

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Okay. Let's turn to Proverbs chapter 25, Proverbs 25, but just to recap,

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I think there are clear differences between calling down a curse, you know, on your own personal enemies versus doing this with the enemies of God or the enemies of the

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Christian church. Like if you're neck, yeah. If your next door neighbor, you know, has a tree and every fall their leaves blow in your yard.

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And somehow a fight broke out between you and your neighbor over something like that. Of course you should not pray to God asking him to curse, you know, your neighbors or anything.

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I think we get that, but there's a lot of evil people in the world who are wicked.

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And it's clear that they kill people. They, they do horrible things. They, they know who

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God is and they hate God and they're working against God. I mean that, can we pray for God to take them out?

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I mean, I'll just admit there, there is a, I won't mention any names, but there's a certain a powerful person in the world that I've prayed.

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I've, I've, this is my prayer. I said, Lord, either save them or take them out, save them or God doesn't have to listen to me.

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And then if God took this person out, who would replace them? I mean, that's another story.

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So, I mean, you, you, the point is you can pray these things, but you need to kind of check your heart before you pray.

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You know, what is my motivation here? Because ultimately we want to see people saved.

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We don't really want to see people destroyed, but there are some people that are just so evil. The world would be a better place if they were removed.

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So a lot of things to consider. All right. Proverbs 25, look at verses 22.

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I would say for our personal enemy, the best thing to do is kill them with kindness.

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As they say, Proverbs 25, 21 and 22. He says, if your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat.

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If he is thirsty, give him water to drink for. So you will heap coals of fire on his head and the

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Lord will reward you. So that's how we should treat our personal enemies.

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The idea here is that hot coals would melt metal and then they could fashion that metal.

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Well, the hot coals upon their head, this is going to soften the heart of your enemy.

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The apostle Paul quotes this in Romans 12. So that's how we deal with our personal enemies, love them, pray for them.

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We want the best for them, that they would be saved. But again, God's enemies, that's a different thing.

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So let's turn to Psalm 143. We're going to look at at least one or two of these imprecatory

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Psalms. Marcus. Yeah. My question finally, where is that passage and what is its context then about where I thought someone was urged to pray for the destruction of their flesh.

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Yeah. There must have been some unrepentant person. There was, I think that's 1

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Corinthians 5. The man that Paul said needs to be removed from the church, deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit might be saved in the day of the

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Lord Jesus. Right. So the man that was having relations with his stepmother and the church was just kind of turning a blind eye.

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Paul said, yeah, remove him to hand him over to Satan, deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

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I mean, is that, and it's not an imprecatory Psalm, but it's kind of along the same lines to a certain degree.

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Right. But I, you know, today, you know how it is. I mean, most ministries it's

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God is love and it doesn't really get much deeper than that. So if you bring something like this up, the average

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Christian has never heard the other side. They're like horrified by it, but this is why we need to show people.

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No, there's actually a lot more in the Bible, but it's not coming from a place of vindictiveness.

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So yeah. Well, you brought this up. I did. I brought it up.

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You're asking for trouble a little bit. What about capital punishment then?

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Yeah. Well, under the law of Moses, clearly God told

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Moses, whatever, how many, 20 different crimes there were, however many that, you know, you could get put to death in the old, in that there's capital punishment today.

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You know, still in this country, there's capital punishment. I mean, do I believe it's biblical? Yes, of course, of course it is.

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I mean, in Genesis chapter nine, after the flood, God said, you know, whoever sheds man's blood by, you know, man, his blood shall be shed.

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So man is to put to death other men who go around and commit first degree murder.

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So yeah, I mean, the death penalty is, is a biblical concept. Psalm 143, nine through 12, all of this stuff can be abused, right?

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People can maybe quote this and justify something that's not right.

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But as long as we're biblical and have the right motivations, there's nothing wrong with this, but Psalm 143 verses nine through 12,

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David writes, deliver me, O Lord, from my enemies. In you, I take shelter.

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Teach me to do your will for you are my God. Your spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness.

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Revive me, O Lord, for your name's sake, for your righteousness sake, bring my soul out of trouble.

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In your mercy, what does it say? Cut off my enemies and destroy all those who afflict my soul for I am your servant.

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So what does David say? If I can paraphrase God, can you kill my enemies for me?

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Please just take care of these people. Isn't that what he's saying? Does anyone have like a paraphrase

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Bible where that's what it says? Well, that's clearly what

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David is saying. Now someone could argue, okay, just because David says it doesn't make it right. I mean, that is a possible response, but you do see

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God speaking and saying these types of things as well. So here's the thing about David, because most of the,

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I don't know, maybe it isn't most, but many of the imprecatory Psalms are written by David, and he is calling for God to destroy his enemies.

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But here's the thing about David. He was God's anointed. He was God's chosen king.

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God established David's throne. So David is a very unique figure.

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He's like the most clear Old Testament picture of like a type of Christ.

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So anyone who is David's enemy to a large degree was also

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God's enemy. If you were fighting against David, trying to pull off a coup, and this is probably why many commentators think

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Psalm 143 was when David's son, Absalom, was trying to stage a coup.

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Absalom was fighting against God and against God's will. So to fight against David, to be David's enemy was to be

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God's enemy. But that's, and kings and even pastors throughout history have tried to kind of play that same card, you know, touch not

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God's anointed. So if you're against me, you're against God. Well, that's not always true. It was true with David.

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It may or may not be true with God's servants today, but David was kind of unique in that way.

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Well, he was called to be king, but he was also a warrior. And on the one hand, and because he was a lawyer, then he wasn't allowed to build the temple.

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So God just calls different people to different ministries.

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They're called policemen ministers in Romans 13. And they don't bear the sword in vain.

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Right. Okay. Now let's kind of transition. There's going to be some overlap between the imprecatory

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Psalms and some of these verses where either David is saying it, he's saying it about God or God himself says,

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I hate these people. Who's heard a sermon like that? Or this isn't really a sermon,

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I guess, but who's heard teaching on this? Yeah. Yeah. Let's turn to Psalm chapter five.

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We'll look at that. But as far as God hating anybody, the first verse, as Marcus just mentioned, the first verse that pops into my mind is that statement.

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It's from Malachi one, but Paul quotes it in Romans nine, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have

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I hated. I remember when I first started studying Romans, I came across that and I'm like, you know, it surprised me.

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God hates Esau. And I asked somebody, okay, Jacob, have I loved Esau?

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Have I hated? What does that mean? And here's what I was told. Well, they said, when

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God said that he hated Esau, it doesn't mean that he actually hated Esau.

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What that means is Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I loved less.

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I thought that's a hard sell. Like you're saying, I hate this person, but that really means you love them.

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Just not as much as you. I don't think that's what it means. Now, at the same time, I don't actually think that God hated the man

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Esau. Now Esau's behavior, some of the things he did were disgraceful. I mean, that's, that's the bottom line.

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I think God did hate some of the things that Esau did. But if you look at the context, it's really talking about the nation of Edom, not

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Esau the person. So I don't actually think God had a burning hatred for Esau the man.

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So did God hate Esau? Actually it says that, but I don't think there's more to the story, but look at Psalm chapter five.

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So we, we need to make sure we're understanding these verses properly and not just seeing, okay,

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God hates some people. So let's run with that. And if I hate them, God must hate it. Let's just hate, hate people.

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And it's okay. Like that's, it's not okay. We need to be very careful. Janet, you have something.

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Well, that would be the response that I would expect. Love the sinner, hate the sin.

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Okay. Does God hate the sin? See, there's no, there's no question. God hates the sin and we should hate sin.

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But the question is, does God hate the one doing the sin? And there are verses that say that, yes, he does.

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Now at the same time, you, that doesn't mean, cause Marcus told me about a pastor that he encountered years ago, that did he teach that God hates sinners?

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I remember you saying that there was a pastor who, that this seemed to be his position. God hates sinners, right?

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Am I remembering? Okay. I mean, I've never heard a pastor say that.

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I certainly would never say that, but let's just see what the Bible says here. Says God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, right?

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That he's showing his love and that isn't because he knew we were going to be saved. It was while we were still sinners.

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He loved us. Yeah. Yeah. God so loved the world. There's no verse that says

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God so hated the world. There's verses that say God is love. There's no verse that says God is hate.

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So I would say the default is God is God loves sinners. He loves sinners so much.

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He sent Christ to die for sinners, but still there's these verses you have to deal with.

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Yeah. We are still sinners, but sinners saved by grace. Well, that's true that every human being is a sinner, quote unquote, in the sense that we have all sinned.

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But those who are in Christ, sinner is not the label that applies to us.

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The label that applies to us is saint. So when you see the term sinner in the

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Bible, usually it's a reference to either unbelievers or people that are like exceedingly sinful.

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So in that sense, it would be incorrect to call Christian sinners, even though all have sinned and come short.

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I know, I know that, but right. You have to look at the context though.

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The term sinner often refers to unbelievers, but you have to take it on a case by case basis.

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All right. Psalm chapter five, David writing, speaking to the Lord. Here's what David says for starting verse four, for you are not a

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God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with you.

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The boastful shall not stand in your sight. You know who's David talking to God.

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So you, God hate all workers of iniquity. You shall destroy those who speak falsehood.

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The Lord of whores, which is abhor means hate. It's probably an even stronger word for hate that the

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Lord of whores, the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. So this is an imprecatory

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Psalm. David is wishing for, he's praying for God to destroy those who speak falsehoods.

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And David says that God hates workers of iniquity. I suppose that's where someone might get the idea that God hates the wicked.

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I mean, that's essentially what is being said. They say, see Psalm chapter five says so, but I think you have to take it in its full context.

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He uses, uses the term bloodthirsty. Okay. The average person who is a sinner is not bloodthirsty, right?

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Your next door neighbor may be an unbeliever. He or she may be a nice person.

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They may be a kind person, but they are lost.

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They are a sinner. That's different. Someone who's a sinner from someone who's bloodthirsty, right?

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Like there's a big, big difference. So I think God is, or David is saying, God, you hate people that are this evil, not all sinners.

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Does that make sense? Okay. I saw another hand in there, right?

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One thing I think of whenever this subject comes up at my head is, you know, what's the end result?

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You know, unrepentant sin. Right. Hell would be the result, right?

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It's, it's a hard argument to say that God, I mean, ultimately you can say, well, people make their choice and God doesn't want them to go there.

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Okay. It's because of their choices, but yeah, that is the end result.

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Okay. We're kind of talking about how God feels like now. Does God hate serial killers?

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I mean, he might, and I wouldn't have to twist my arm to say that he, that he does.

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Could a serial killer be saved? Yes, I think, I think so. So one argument is that it's

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David saying this and David is wrong. God doesn't actually hate anybody. But if you're taking notes, here's one verse,

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Hosea 9, 15, God is the one speaking and God says that he hates the ungodly.

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So that's God saying it for himself. Proverbs chapter six, most of you are familiar with this passage,

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Proverbs 6, 16 through 19. These six things, the

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Lord hates. Yes. Seven are an abomination to him. And it lists a bunch of things. And the last one,

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God hates a person who sows discord among the brethren. So it doesn't say that he hates the action.

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He says that he hates the one who doesn't. All right, let's turn to Leviticus 20 and we're actually moving.

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I'm not just listing a bunch of verses like, okay, I get the point, but we're actually going to have a conclusion here of what we should do with all of these verses.

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I think there is a reason why they're in the Bible and it serves a good purpose. But Leviticus chapter 20, we're almost done.

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Again, this is not an old Testament. This is one thing people do. Well, that's just the old Testament.

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You know, God was angry back then. God was wrathful in the old Testament. And now that Jesus came,

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God isn't like that anymore. Who's heard that? Yeah. Again, Paul says in first Corinthians, let them be anathema.

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So, I mean, that doesn't really hold up, but look at Leviticus 20, 22 through 23.

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You shall therefore keep, this is God speaking. You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my judgments and perform them.

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The land where I am bringing you to dwell may not. So that the land that I'm bringing you to may not vomit you out.

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So basically saying to the Israelites, if you take on the practices of the Canaanites, you know, you're not going to dwell in the land.

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You're going to get removed from the land, which they did. They were taken off to Babylon. So don't live like the

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Canaanites. Look at verse 23, the Lord says, and you shall not walk in the statutes of the nation, which

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I am casting out before you, the Canaanite tribes, for they commit all these things.

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And therefore I abhor them. Okay. So God says that he abhors the

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Canaanites. What are some of the things that the Canaanites did in that passage?

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They practiced idolatry. They practiced sodomy. They practiced all sorts of sexual perversion.

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And God, this is the teaching. Any nation that adopts those practices, your nation will not survive.

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That's what God is telling them. And obviously that's a whole message unto itself.

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But let's try to wrap this up and come to a conclusion.

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Why are these verses in the Bible? Let me hear your thoughts. What is a possible application for all of this?

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Because I suspect a lot of people don't really like this. Maybe they're uncomfortable with it.

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They're not sure what to do with it. What's a possible reason it's in there or a possible application?

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Marcus. Shall not the judge of the whole earth do what is right?

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And I was thinking about God's attitude is not, he says, vengeance is mine.

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I will be praised. So you think of God being angry, but there's the other verse too. And this doesn't clarify this just further says both sides of the issue.

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He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. I'll just speak for myself.

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When I read these verses, even when I'm communicating this to you in the back of my mind,

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I'm thinking, okay, well, yes, they're wicked. They're sinful, exceedingly sinful.

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God says he hates this group or he hates the Canaanites. But in the back of my mind, it's like, I hear this.

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Well, you're a sinner too. That's what I think. So I think part of it is to remind us how

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God views sin. And it's not enough for God to say, thou shalt not do this, thou shalt not do that.

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Now we need to know how bad sin is. So that's the first thing.

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And that kind of sets you up. The bad news sets you up to deliver the good news.

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Cause there's a lot of people who don't really think sin is that bad and they need to know this.

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So once people read these verses, if they're honest, if they're keeping an open mind, they're going to get the point of how

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God views wickedness. And there should be that voice saying, well,

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I need, you know, I want God's grace because I see how God feels about some of this. And it also, it tells me how very, very valuable

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Christ's death was, is that he resisted temptation, was totally innocent all his life, pure, and that his sacrifice was in God's eyes of perfect justice was valuable enough to balance out all the sin of all, just all mine, say nothing about all of all the elects say nothing about all of the whole world.

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Right. So it shows us how sinful, you know, sin is.

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And once we realize, once a person realizes that they realize how amazing God's grace is that God can forgive even a

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Canaanite. Okay. God hates the Canaanites. That's what he said. You know, don't, don't get upset with me.

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That's what God said, but you know what? There was a Canaanite woman who came to know

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Jehovah and she was even included in the genealogy of Christ.

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And who is that? Well, there's, I was thinking of Rahab, but there's just because there's a people group that's evil.

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There's always the chance for individuals to come to know

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Jesus. So in always thinking about how we can transition something to the gospel.

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Yeah. All this stuff about the imprecatory Psalms, calling down God's curse. God hates that. God hates this group.

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Okay. That's bad news. And once people realize the bad news, then they're set up to hear the good news, but they have to understand the bad news first.

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That's why a lesson like this, I think is valuable. There's somebody out there who's never heard this and they don't think sin is that bad.

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This should be able to convince them hopefully. So once someone understands that, then they can understand the good news of the gospel.

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And that's where we come in. And just to end on a positive note, if we're, if we're walking with the

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Lord, if you're safe tonight, God has forgiven us of all of our God.

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What's his default setting? Yeah. God's default setting is love. He desires first Timothy two, four,

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God desires all men to be saved. Come to the knowledge of the truth. As you quoted

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Ezekiel 33, 11, I think God takes no pleasure, no delight in the death of the wicked.

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So sometimes you need the hellfire and brimstone message to shake people out of their complacency.

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And if there's anyone who listens to this and they realize how bad sin is, just know that God is willing to forgive any and all sin.

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It is the goodness of God. Romans says Romans do that leads a person to repentance.

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And that's our desire. No matter who a person is, what they've done, no matter how evil, even, even a murderer can be saved.

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And that's what we desire. So let's, let's pray. Lord, I, I just ask that there's someone who's never put their trust in Jesus.

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Somebody watching online, maybe who has been living in rebellion and thinking that it's no big deal because I'm, well,

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I'm better than these other people. Lord help them to understand the bad news and Lord help them to understand the good news that Jesus came and died on the cross.

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He paid the penalty in full for all of our sin. We thank you for your grace. We thank you that you are a

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God of love. The Bible never once says God is hate. It does say

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Lord that you are love. And we believe there is a special love that you have for your people, a redemptive love.

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And Lord, we want other people to experience it as well. So we pray for them.

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We pray for all those who are lost. Give us opportunities in the week to come, uh, to share this message of maybe bad news, but ultimately leading to the good news.