Hate It All

Do most of your friends wake up around nine or ten at night, then head downtown to business’ that are closed, and break into them to steal things? Or perhaps out into the suburbs, and quietly and with great stealth sneak into people’s houses, kill them, and then take their time rifling through what are now going to be their possessions.

Do the majority of the people you associate with enjoy spending time with prostitutes, or do they instead stalk the streets looking for whatever form of drugs they can find. Perhaps they are serious drunks, mouth washing in the morning with whisky, as they say, or maybe they are just pickpockets, nothing violent, just popping something into their pockets from the store shelf when no one is looking. Maybe they work for governmental agencies, pilfering a little here, a little there, having sex with the person down the hall a few times a month in that empty room, or maybe they beat their wives occasionally, or have sex with their daughter or son. “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Gen. 6:5)

No, your friends are more than likely those people that you go to church with, the ones that do not lust after that pretty girl who always sits two rows in front of them, they are the ones on the church finance committee, who have decided that they know what is best when it comes to the fiscal direction of the church, they enjoy just a little internet porn occasionally, maybe an extra glass of wine when the husband heads off to work, the television programs that extol sex, violence, pits of sin that others have fallen into called reality shows. Your friends do not covet, they do not lie, they never spill out a curse word, or even think an occasional bad thought about anyone, and if they do, well, we are only human, right?

Did I miss anything, do you feel left out, or did you find yourself somewhere in there, are you that friend, or is that only “the other guy.” “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

You can try to be as righteous as you like, and that is not going to avail you one thing, it is through the righteousness of Christ that we are made acceptable to the Father, in fact, we are so filthy, just as all our works are, (Isaiah 64:6) that when Christ presents us to the Father, He doesn’t even see us, but Jesus. I would ask you now to attempt to find one good person on this planet, just one, I would ask you to try to find one single place on this earth that has not been touched by the curse, anyone or anything that the Lord is perfectly pleased with, that He would not change at all. They do not exist, “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10)

“And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.” (Gen. 3:17) “There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.” (Romans 3:11)

Here is the reason for cults that profess works are necessary, here is the reason for the Charismatic movement, we want to do something, we want to feel a certain way, we want to serve a God that serves us, we do not want to hate the world, we do not want to hate our father and sister, (Luke 14:26) we just want to put on the blinders, sing the happy songs on Sunday morning, and then get through the upcoming week as best as possible.

You are never going to find one lovely thing on this planet, you are commanded, not asked, but commanded to hate it, (1 John 2:15) hate the people in it, even to hate yourself, while at the same time loving your neighbor, (Mark 12:31) loving mercy, doing justly, (Micah 6:8) and seeking continuously for those things that are above. (Col. 3:2) The next time someone tells you that you need “Christ like a crutch,” you tell them you don’t need a crutch, you need a wheelchair, you need to be on the life support that He offers, because any other way that might seem right to them, is just the way that leads to death. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Prov. 14:12)