Transcript: Episode 0012

“Perfect Hatred”

This transcript:
  1. Was machine generated.
  2. Has not been checked for errors.
  3. May not be entirely accurate.
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00:00:00 – 00:00:02:	What is it called?

00:00:30 – 00:00:44:	Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast, I am Corey J. Moller, and I'm Woe.

00:00:44 – 00:00:49:	He who is not angry, whereas he has caused to be sins, for unreasonable patience is the

00:00:49 – 00:00:54:	hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence and incites not only the wicked, but the good

00:00:54 – 00:00:56:	to do wrong.

00:00:56 – 00:01:00:	St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople.

00:01:00 – 00:01:05:	That's a quote that we chose to open with because it puts in context both anger and hatred

00:01:05 – 00:01:14:	as aspects that are part of the Christian life that is seen properly, as almost always sinful,

00:01:14 – 00:01:17:	and it's always something to be concerned about.

00:01:17 – 00:01:21:	Today's episode we're talking about Perfect Hatred, which is the term the Scripture

00:01:21 – 00:01:27:	uses for it, and we are talking about anger and how we are supposed to deal with it.

00:01:27 – 00:01:33:	I want to make clear at the outset in this preface that this is not a continuation of

00:01:33 – 00:01:39:	the episode on lesser-known doctrines, like usery and head coverings and shaking the

00:01:39 – 00:01:40:	dust off your feet.

00:01:40 – 00:01:45:	We are not today talking about a doctrine of hatred, in other words, this is not something

00:01:45 – 00:01:51:	that we are saying, hey, the world needs more hatred and the church needs more hatred.

00:01:51 – 00:01:54:	The reason that we're doing this episode in particular, the reason we're devoting

00:01:54 – 00:02:01:	an entire episode to the topic of Perfect Hatred is that, well, I think everyone can

00:02:01 – 00:02:05:	agree that the world needs less hatred and less anger.

00:02:05 – 00:02:11:	The question that is vital to Christians today is whether the correct amount of hatred

00:02:11 – 00:02:18:	is zero, and the scriptural answer to that question is no.

00:02:18 – 00:02:23:	Perfect hatred is something that God commands, and it's something that obviously makes

00:02:23 – 00:02:29:	us uncomfortable, because that seems contrary to many of the things that are found in Scripture.

00:02:29 – 00:02:34:	So today we're going to be discussing the passages that deal with love and condemn hate,

00:02:34 – 00:02:37:	and we're also going to be talking about the passages that deal with hate and advocate

00:02:37 – 00:02:43:	it, and what it means to advocate hate, because obviously that sounds like a terrible

00:02:43 – 00:02:44:	thing.

00:02:44 – 00:02:49:	That's something that Cory and I are routinely accused of, that we are hateful men who

00:02:49 – 00:02:54:	hate races and hate people and hate women, and we just hate everything, we're filled

00:02:54 – 00:02:58:	with hate, and so I'm sure that there are people who will see the subject of this episode

00:02:58 – 00:03:03:	and be filled with glee that we're going mask off, when, in fact, what we are trying

00:03:03 – 00:03:11:	to get to is a clear way for all of us to look at our own behavior, our own thoughts

00:03:11 – 00:03:18:	and our own emotions, and in a scriptural manner evaluate whether what we are feeling

00:03:18 – 00:03:25:	and saying and doing is, in fact, scriptural, perfect hatred, or if it's sinful hatred,

00:03:25 – 00:03:31:	and the distinction between those two is a vital one, and it's one that Christians must

00:03:31 – 00:03:38:	be able to think about and discuss clearly, because as we look at the world, everything

00:03:38 – 00:03:43:	now is done in terms of love, ever since the 60s, when we had the Age of Aquarius begin,

00:03:43 – 00:03:50:	the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, and the summer of love, and the love fest, and everything

00:03:50 – 00:03:55:	since then really has been very overtly done in the name of love.

00:03:55 – 00:04:01:	Now, the abuse of that term is clearly satanic if you're Christian, if you look at what

00:04:01 – 00:04:08:	the boomers were doing in the 60s, and the natural consequences of that today with what

00:04:08 – 00:04:13:	we see, we've discussed many times in previous episodes, things that are done in the name

00:04:13 – 00:04:19:	of love are over evil, they're horrifying, they're disgusting, and we're told that those

00:04:19 – 00:04:26:	things are love, and we're told to love them, and the subject of this episode is, is it

00:04:26 – 00:04:34:	Christian to hate, period, is a Christian to be able to hate, and if so, what things

00:04:34 – 00:04:39:	are Christians permitted to hate, so that's where we're going to begin.

00:04:39 – 00:04:44:	And so, of course, the short version of what we are as Christians to love, and what we

00:04:44 – 00:04:49:	are as Christians to hate, is that we are to love the things that God loves, the things

00:04:49 – 00:04:55:	that are good, and to hate the things that God hates, the things that are evil.

00:04:55 – 00:04:59:	And these are not two terms that we can just ignore in Scripture.

00:04:59 – 00:05:02:	Obviously, no Christian is going to say we can ignore the word love, one would hope

00:05:02 – 00:05:04:	anyway.

00:05:04 – 00:05:08:	The Greek word, of course, being agape is the word we're talking about here.

00:05:08 – 00:05:13:	That word appears many times in Scripture, appears 115 times in the New Testament, 15

00:05:13 – 00:05:17:	times in the Septuagint, because of course, it's not going to appear in the Hebrew since

00:05:17 – 00:05:19:	it is a Greek word.

00:05:19 – 00:05:26:	Agapah-o, the verbal form, appears even more, 143 times in the New Testament, 213 in

00:05:26 – 00:05:29:	the Septuagint, seems like quite a lot.

00:05:29 – 00:05:35:	But if you actually look then at the terms for hate in related terms, they are actually

00:05:35 – 00:05:39:	more frequent in Scripture than the word love.

00:05:39 – 00:05:47:	Misset-o is to hate in Greek, 40 times in the New Testament, 143 in the Old Testament.

00:05:47 – 00:05:54:	And then another one that is important is extras, is hostile also enmity or hate, 32 times

00:05:54 – 00:06:00:	in the New Testament, 320 times in the Septuagint.

00:06:00 – 00:06:05:	The concept of hate and enmity is not something that is infrequent in Scripture, appears only

00:06:05 – 00:06:06:	in a few places.

00:06:06 – 00:06:13:	It appears throughout Scripture from the beginning to the end, from Genesis to Revelation.

00:06:13 – 00:06:15:	So this is not something that we can neglect as Christians.

00:06:15 – 00:06:21:	We need to understand what these things are, how they relate to each other, and what we

00:06:21 – 00:06:25:	are supposed to do with them as Christians.

00:06:25 – 00:06:32:	In short, love and hatred are really opposite sides of the same coin.

00:06:32 – 00:06:37:	The love something is also to hate that which would destroy what you love.

00:06:37 – 00:06:41:	And so God loves us, God loves his sheep.

00:06:41 – 00:06:46:	Well he hates the wolves because the wolves want to destroy the thing he loves, they want

00:06:46 – 00:06:47:	to destroy the sheep.

00:06:47 – 00:06:51:	That is the same that a father would do with relation to his family.

00:06:51 – 00:06:58:	A father who loves his wife and his children will hate those who would cause them harm.

00:06:58 – 00:07:02:	That is a perfect hatred because you are hating evil.

00:07:02 – 00:07:08:	And Scripture speaks of loving your enemy, and of course that is going to come up.

00:07:08 – 00:07:12:	That does not mean that you permit the enemy to destroy the things that it is your duty

00:07:12 – 00:07:14:	to protect and love.

00:07:14 – 00:07:21:	It is not love when you permit your family to whom you owe a higher duty to be destroyed

00:07:21 – 00:07:22:	by your enemy.

00:07:22 – 00:07:24:	You still owe duties there.

00:07:24 – 00:07:31:	You are not to hate your enemy in the sense of a mindless zeal to destroy your enemy.

00:07:31 – 00:07:36:	It is not a vengeance we are speaking of, but you can still oppose your enemy.

00:07:36 – 00:07:38:	You can still oppose the enemies of your nation.

00:07:38 – 00:07:40:	You can oppose those who want to destroy your family.

00:07:40 – 00:07:43:	In fact it is your Christian duty to do so.

00:07:43 – 00:07:46:	So this is not a simple or straight forward thing.

00:07:46 – 00:07:52:	You have to understand deeply what these terms mean and what duties flow from them.

00:07:52 – 00:07:58:	And I think the first term that we need to properly understand is evil.

00:07:58 – 00:08:01:	But what actually is evil?

00:08:01 – 00:08:07:	Fundamentally this episode is a question about God's nature and about the things that

00:08:07 – 00:08:11:	are fruit of the Holy Spirit.

00:08:11 – 00:08:19:	When Adam sinned in the garden, he introduced evil into creation as the head of creation

00:08:19 – 00:08:25:	ordained by God to be over it, the universe fell when Adam fell.

00:08:25 – 00:08:33:	And I think that when we look, we call God Father because that is the name that he has

00:08:33 – 00:08:36:	given himself and that is his relationship to us.

00:08:36 – 00:08:42:	And so we think imperfectly in terms of our own fathers being disappointed or angry when

00:08:42 – 00:08:44:	we misbehave.

00:08:44 – 00:08:50:	And you think of it in chronological terms that the child does something wicked, does something

00:08:50 – 00:08:52:	wrong against the rules.

00:08:52 – 00:08:58:	And the Father responds by anger, by punishment of some sort.

00:08:58 – 00:09:02:	And then ideally some form of reconciliation.

00:09:02 – 00:09:08:	While some of that applies when we are dealing with God, it is not really the beginning of

00:09:08 – 00:09:11:	the understanding of what is actually going on.

00:09:11 – 00:09:17:	Because what truly happened when Adam disobeyed God in the garden by listening to his wife

00:09:17 – 00:09:21:	rather than listening to God and then by taking the fruit that had been forbidden to him,

00:09:21 – 00:09:25:	it had been an abomination to him according to God's law.

00:09:25 – 00:09:27:	Adam made himself God.

00:09:27 – 00:09:30:	He said to God, I know you told me to do one thing.

00:09:30 – 00:09:31:	I have a better idea.

00:09:31 – 00:09:33:	I'm going to do something else.

00:09:33 – 00:09:35:	I am going to be my God.

00:09:35 – 00:09:37:	You might be my creator, but you're no longer my God.

00:09:37 – 00:09:41:	At least in this one moment, I'm going to do my thing.

00:09:41 – 00:09:43:	That was evil.

00:09:43 – 00:09:49:	Now was it evil because it was on one side of an arbitrary line that God drew in the

00:09:49 – 00:09:51:	sand.

00:09:51 – 00:09:53:	I don't think that's the way we can think about this.

00:09:53 – 00:09:58:	I think that a proper understanding of evil and frankly a proper understanding of God's

00:09:58 – 00:10:05:	law or God's eternal will is that whatever is good is according to God's will.

00:10:05 – 00:10:11:	And therefore whatever is evil is contrary to God's eternal will.

00:10:11 – 00:10:16:	On the sixth day of creation before God rested, he saw that it was very good.

00:10:16 – 00:10:22:	Now very good when that was said in Genesis 2, isn't referring to, wow, pretty good,

00:10:22 – 00:10:23:	very good.

00:10:23 – 00:10:24:	Short or perfect?

00:10:24 – 00:10:25:	No.

00:10:25 – 00:10:27:	It was absolutely perfect and it was complete.

00:10:27 – 00:10:31:	The other days of creation were also good and that there was no defect on them, but they

00:10:31 – 00:10:33:	were not complete.

00:10:33 – 00:10:40:	When God declared creation to be very good, He declared it to be complete and to be perfect.

00:10:40 – 00:10:43:	And that means that it was in accord with His will.

00:10:43 – 00:10:49:	We have a small concept of this is humans where you may see someone or maybe if you have

00:10:49 – 00:10:56:	the gift, you make a painting or you create a song and you keep working on it until it's

00:10:56 – 00:10:57:	finished.

00:10:57 – 00:10:59:	And then you step back and you say, yeah, that's it.

00:10:59 – 00:11:01:	I nailed it.

00:11:01 – 00:11:03:	Everything is there that I want to be there.

00:11:03 – 00:11:05:	There's nothing there that I don't want to be there.

00:11:05 – 00:11:07:	You say that your creation is very good.

00:11:07 – 00:11:09:	God did that with the entire universe.

00:11:09 – 00:11:13:	And I meant that everything that was there is exactly what He wanted.

00:11:13 – 00:11:16:	And Adam introduced evil into the world.

00:11:16 – 00:11:20:	He acted in a way that was contrary to God's nature.

00:11:20 – 00:11:27:	In other words, the thing that Adam had become was opposite of what God wanted.

00:11:27 – 00:11:33:	And so the root of hatred, as we're talking about it today, is fundamentally not an emotional

00:11:33 – 00:11:34:	one.

00:11:34 – 00:11:39:	I think that's one of the most important things that we need to get across.

00:11:39 – 00:11:46:	And anger are in one sense and in some cases, they are emotions.

00:11:46 – 00:11:48:	But that's not all that they are.

00:11:48 – 00:11:54:	When God says that He hates evil, He's not talking about being emotional.

00:11:54 – 00:12:00:	God is talking about His relationship to that which is contrary to His will.

00:12:00 – 00:12:07:	The reason that you and I will die is because we're born with sin that is contrary to God's

00:12:07 – 00:12:08:	will.

00:12:08 – 00:12:12:	And the only way that that can be rectified is both through our death and through Christ

00:12:12 – 00:12:16:	death covering us in His blood so that our sins are atoned for.

00:12:16 – 00:12:24:	That is how God restores the evil that we have to a goodness that He can welcome.

00:12:24 – 00:12:26:	And so that's not emotion.

00:12:26 – 00:12:32:	You know, when God loves us in one sense, it is emotion, but it is more properly understood

00:12:32 – 00:12:38:	as the thing which God desires us to be, His perfect creation.

00:12:38 – 00:12:40:	That is in accord with His will.

00:12:40 – 00:12:46:	And the thing that He hates about us is the sin that is preventing us from being in accord

00:12:46 – 00:12:47:	with His will.

00:12:47 – 00:12:54:	So for God, love and hatred are first and foremost two sides, as Corey said, of the coin

00:12:54 – 00:13:00:	of is this in alignment with God's will or is it contrary to it?

00:13:00 – 00:13:05:	If it's contrary to it, then from God's perspective and from the perspective downstream

00:13:05 – 00:13:13:	with us as Christians to hate that which is evil is in accord with God's will, not

00:13:13 – 00:13:20:	as an act or as an upwelling of emotion, but because whatever is contrary to God should

00:13:20 – 00:13:21:	not be.

00:13:21 – 00:13:22:	It shouldn't exist.

00:13:22 – 00:13:28:	And we are forbidden as Christians to embrace or to tolerate or to welcome that which

00:13:28 – 00:13:35:	is contrary to God's will, that's fundamentally embracing evil on its face.

00:13:35 – 00:13:41:	Now there are things to be said about how you handle that in the Christian life, but fundamentally

00:13:41 – 00:13:47:	to say, yes, I will love evil is to reject God because it is to say, I am going to embrace

00:13:47 – 00:13:50:	that which is contrary to God's eternal will.

00:13:50 – 00:13:54:	And the only solution for that is God's eternal damnation.

00:13:54 – 00:14:01:	So it's really important that we understand and we get this right because there's no

00:14:01 – 00:14:03:	middle ground for understanding the stakes.

00:14:03 – 00:14:10:	And when it comes to love and hate in the modern context, this gets more into love.

00:14:10 – 00:14:13:	I've been working on some things related to that.

00:14:13 – 00:14:15:	Hopefully I'll publish something soon on it.

00:14:15 – 00:14:21:	But love in the modern sense in the modern world has come to mean permissiveness.

00:14:21 – 00:14:26:	And in reality, this is a direct inversion because that's what Satan does.

00:14:26 – 00:14:29:	Satan takes the good for evil and the evil for good.

00:14:29 – 00:14:33:	There is a verse directly that speaks to that, of course.

00:14:33 – 00:14:38:	And if you take love to mean permissiveness, what you are really doing is you are showing

00:14:38 – 00:14:41:	hatred for that person.

00:14:41 – 00:14:47:	Because that which is good is that which is in a line with God's will for you.

00:14:47 – 00:14:50:	That means it's good for you.

00:14:50 – 00:14:52:	And of course, God's will flows from his nature.

00:14:52 – 00:14:53:	So you can speak of it neither way you want.

00:14:53 – 00:14:59:	You can say it's in a line with God's nature or his will permissiveness is saying that

00:14:59 – 00:15:04:	it is fine to act contrary to God's will.

00:15:04 – 00:15:08:	And it is love to let that person do what he wants to do.

00:15:08 – 00:15:09:	And that's not love.

00:15:09 – 00:15:13:	That is indifference that is actual hatred.

00:15:13 – 00:15:19:	There is no more vile thing you can do with regard to another person than be indifferent

00:15:20 – 00:15:25:	to him risking his eternal soul by acting contrary to God's will.

00:15:25 – 00:15:35:	And so a good illustration of that would be, let's say we're standing in a room together.

00:15:35 – 00:15:39:	And you say that you're going to go down the hall to another room.

00:15:39 – 00:15:45:	If I say, don't do that because I know there's a bear in that room,

00:15:45 – 00:15:48:	I'm demonstrating love for you because I'm demonstrating care.

00:15:49 – 00:15:55:	If on the other hand, I say nothing or have fun, I'm demonstrating hatred for you

00:15:55 – 00:16:00:	because I know that you are going to be harmed and I'm allowing that to come to pass.

00:16:00 – 00:16:01:	Now, of course, that's an extreme option.

00:16:01 – 00:16:07:	I hope you don't have a bear in your house, but we see this all the time in society

00:16:07 – 00:16:12:	because we see people who engage in incredibly destructive behavior.

00:16:12 – 00:16:15:	And we are told that it's loving to let them do that.

00:16:15 – 00:16:19:	And so those who engage in transgenderism or homosexuality were told

00:16:19 – 00:16:22:	that we have to tolerate that, we have to permit that

00:16:22 – 00:16:24:	because it's actually loving to permit it.

00:16:24 – 00:16:28:	And know it's exact opposite, it is hateful to permit that.

00:16:28 – 00:16:32:	The loving option is to rebuke them with God's law

00:16:32 – 00:16:36:	because that gives the opportunity for the spirit to come in

00:16:36 – 00:16:40:	and actually potentially change something in that person's life.

00:16:41 – 00:16:44:	If you speak the words of God to that person, the truth,

00:16:44 – 00:16:48:	instead of just letting them go on their way, you are demonstrating love.

00:16:49 – 00:16:52:	And that's the point. Love is not permissiveness.

00:16:52 – 00:16:57:	These are two totally different concepts. Love, in fact, rebukes, love,

00:16:57 – 00:17:03:	in fact, corrects. Love speaks the law to people because love actually

00:17:03 – 00:17:08:	wants what is ultimately good, not what is temporarily pleasurable or enjoyable.

00:17:08 – 00:17:10:	These are different things.

00:17:11 – 00:17:14:	There are going to be a couple papers that we'll have in the show notes

00:17:14 – 00:17:16:	that I hope people will click on.

00:17:16 – 00:17:21:	One of them is a fairly short document by Professor Mark Quort,

00:17:21 – 00:17:26:	who is now sainted on Christian disputes and how to handle them.

00:17:26 – 00:17:30:	And one of the points that he makes in that paper very well is that

00:17:31 – 00:17:36:	there's a sense really, only in the last century in Christianity

00:17:36 – 00:17:39:	or so-called Christianity, including among Lutherans,

00:17:39 – 00:17:47:	where we are told of the law of love, where we're sold things in terms of this

00:17:47 – 00:17:53:	permissiveness and this license and love is held up as the highest good.

00:17:54 – 00:17:59:	Now, there's a switcheroo that's going on there because we all know,

00:17:59 – 00:18:06:	of course, that God is love, but the flip side is that is not necessarily true.

00:18:07 – 00:18:13:	Love is not God. God, to speak in imperfect human terms, is many things.

00:18:13 – 00:18:15:	Now, obviously God is only one thing.

00:18:15 – 00:18:19:	It's when we're dealing with God's nature, it's fundamentally impossible

00:18:19 – 00:18:22:	to speak with absolute precision because we can't understand.

00:18:22 – 00:18:24:	We can't fit God in our head.

00:18:24 – 00:18:30:	So sometimes you'll hear Cory and I kind of choosing our words very carefully

00:18:30 – 00:18:32:	or doubling back and it's not uncertainty.

00:18:32 – 00:18:39:	It's very easy to say things that either are heretical or will strongly suggest

00:18:39 – 00:18:44:	heresies downstream if you follow a claim to its natural conclusion.

00:18:44 – 00:18:52:	So God is love, but God is also hate because again, these are not emotions.

00:18:52 – 00:18:54:	I think that's one of the most crucial things.

00:18:54 – 00:18:59:	A couple episodes ago, I made a, not an offhand comment, but a brief comment

00:18:59 – 00:19:02:	where I said something in effect that if I talk to someone on Twitter,

00:19:02 – 00:19:07:	my chief concern is that they understand with clarity what I mean.

00:19:07 – 00:19:10:	And I said, I don't care how they feel about it.

00:19:10 – 00:19:13:	I basically said I'm more or less disregard their emotions and I didn't clarify at the

00:19:13 – 00:19:14:	time.

00:19:14 – 00:19:18:	And when I was really listening, I realized I would sound kind of horrible to most people.

00:19:18 – 00:19:22:	For one thing, I feel the same way about myself.

00:19:22 – 00:19:28:	I don't care about my emotions because in my mind, and I know this is going to sound

00:19:28 – 00:19:29:	heartless.

00:19:29 – 00:19:33:	I hope that I can explain myself well.

00:19:33 – 00:19:41:	For me to feel something in response to a fact, I don't consider that to have any information

00:19:41 – 00:19:42:	payload.

00:19:42 – 00:19:48:	It's like if I stub my toe in the dark on the nightstand or something, it hurts.

00:19:48 – 00:19:49:	It hurts a lot.

00:19:49 – 00:19:51:	I might cry out.

00:19:51 – 00:19:53:	It's momentary.

00:19:53 – 00:19:57:	The fact that I'm feeling pain in that moment tells me that I stub my toe and it's

00:19:57 – 00:19:59:	part of stubbing my toe.

00:19:59 – 00:20:05:	And so the fact of the toe being stubbed is the part of that whole scene that has information.

00:20:05 – 00:20:11:	The fact that I hurt and that I cry out, it's not a salient fact to me.

00:20:11 – 00:20:12:	It's momentary.

00:20:12 – 00:20:13:	It's a blip.

00:20:13 – 00:20:18:	And so for me, emotions are, it's like that or it's like gasp paints.

00:20:18 – 00:20:23:	Like you're bloated and it's uncomfortable and you can feel something moving inside

00:20:23 – 00:20:24:	you and it hurts.

00:20:24 – 00:20:29:	And it's an ugly reminder that you're not a solid hunk of muscle.

00:20:29 – 00:20:34:	There's actually stuff in there that we don't like to think about.

00:20:34 – 00:20:36:	But when it hurts, you think about it.

00:20:36 – 00:20:42:	It feels, it's unnatural, it is natural, but it's unpleasant to be feeling a thing that

00:20:42 – 00:20:44:	you don't normally feel.

00:20:44 – 00:20:50:	And so for me, processing of emotions is a temporary thing, but I don't derive knowledge

00:20:50 – 00:20:51:	from it.

00:20:51 – 00:20:54:	And on previous episodes, there have been several times where I've mentioned stories

00:20:54 – 00:20:59:	where someone said something to me that I took a lesson from.

00:20:59 – 00:21:05:	I think that some people, if you're used to processing your life in terms of your emotions

00:21:05 – 00:21:10:	over the facts, you might hear that and think, oh, well, he's mad because someone said

00:21:10 – 00:21:11:	something mean about him.

00:21:11 – 00:21:13:	And I try to make the point like, I don't care.

00:21:13 – 00:21:16:	Like I, yes, I was mad.

00:21:16 – 00:21:17:	It was momentary.

00:21:17 – 00:21:18:	I stubbed my toe.

00:21:18 – 00:21:19:	I got over it.

00:21:19 – 00:21:22:	I remember where the night's end is even in dark.

00:21:22 – 00:21:28:	And so that's what, to me, and I'm weird, I'm a weird man, I don't, I wouldn't advocate

00:21:28 – 00:21:30:	that everyone be like this.

00:21:30 – 00:21:35:	But I do think it's important to understand that there's, there's something that's happened

00:21:35 – 00:21:41:	in the church as we've become increasingly feminized that more and more, the feelings

00:21:41 – 00:21:47:	in the emotions that people have in the moment when something is being discussed or something

00:21:47 – 00:21:54:	is being debated, the feelings are seen as the facts somehow, which is not remotely the

00:21:54 – 00:21:57:	case that it's the exact opposite.

00:21:57 – 00:22:01:	We should try to respect each other's emotions and I do.

00:22:01 – 00:22:06:	I am far more cognizant and respectful of other people's emotions than I am of my own.

00:22:06 – 00:22:08:	I'm utterly ruthless towards myself.

00:22:08 – 00:22:12:	I would, I'd been killed a hundred times over if I treated others the way I treat myself

00:22:12 – 00:22:13:	internally.

00:22:13 – 00:22:14:	And it's not self-loathing.

00:22:14 – 00:22:20:	It's just, I, I'm going to try to be the best that I can be and that's going to hurt sometimes

00:22:20 – 00:22:22:	and I'm okay with that.

00:22:22 – 00:22:27:	So anyway, the point that Mark War makes in his paper is that there's, there's increasingly

00:22:27 – 00:22:35:	this feminized notion of making love God and I hope that's coming through clearly.

00:22:35 – 00:22:36:	Love is being treated.

00:22:36 – 00:22:44:	Love is a concept now separate from God is being treated as though it is God.

00:22:44 – 00:22:48:	And very often in these conversations that we see in the church and in the world where

00:22:48 – 00:22:54:	we as Christians are interacting with others, love is treated as the God, not God, not the

00:22:54 – 00:23:00:	God who hates evil, not the God who hates those who persecute his saints.

00:23:00 – 00:23:03:	But just love is this, it's own thing.

00:23:03 – 00:23:09:	And so this God that emerged in the 60s is named love and it's, it's a name of a God

00:23:09 – 00:23:11:	that you hear all the time.

00:23:11 – 00:23:16:	And as Christians we've fallen for it because who doesn't want love?

00:23:16 – 00:23:19:	Everyone wants to feel loved, wants to enjoy that.

00:23:19 – 00:23:21:	Hatred shouldn't exist.

00:23:21 – 00:23:24:	I think that's one of the important parts of this.

00:23:24 – 00:23:29:	The fact that there is any hatred beginning with God's hatred means that there are things

00:23:29 – 00:23:31:	that are contrary to God's will.

00:23:31 – 00:23:36:	And after judgment day, there will be no more hatred because everything will finally

00:23:36 – 00:23:42:	be in perfect accord with God's will as it has not been since the seventh day of creation.

00:23:42 – 00:23:51:	And so it's a vital subject for us to understand that if we're serving love and not serving

00:23:51 – 00:23:56:	God, we're serving a demon, we're serving a false God.

00:23:56 – 00:24:01:	Even if it's a demon named love and even if the things look and sound loving, if you

00:24:01 – 00:24:06:	are acting contrary to God's nature, you're doing evil.

00:24:06 – 00:24:11:	And that's a really hard part of dealing with this subject because it's a lot easier

00:24:11 – 00:24:15:	to be tolerant, to be permissive, to give license to things because you don't have to

00:24:15 – 00:24:19:	fight back, you don't have to say anything, you just let it slide.

00:24:19 – 00:24:24:	You cross to the other side of the street, you look the other way and you let it go.

00:24:24 – 00:24:25:	That's the easy choice.

00:24:25 – 00:24:29:	And so Satan's convinced us, well that's the loving choice.

00:24:29 – 00:24:35:	And it's important for us to understand that just because something is called love doesn't

00:24:36 – 00:24:37:	mean it's from God.

00:24:37 – 00:24:41:	There are some things that are love or some from God.

00:24:41 – 00:24:42:	All true love is from God.

00:24:42 – 00:24:48:	But there are today false things masquerading as love that were told come from God where

00:24:48 – 00:24:49:	that's not remotely the case.

00:24:49 – 00:24:55:	You've touched on the genealogy of these ideas and of course we went over that in an earlier

00:24:55 – 00:25:01:	episode, but you can also look at the fruits of these things because a tree is known by

00:25:01 – 00:25:02:	its fruit.

00:25:02 – 00:25:08:	And if you take the permissiveness that masquerades is love today and look at the fruit

00:25:08 – 00:25:13:	it has yielded over a course of decades, it's very obvious it's not from God.

00:25:13 – 00:25:17:	That which is from God yields good fruit.

00:25:17 – 00:25:23:	That which has come from this perverted sense of love is wicked and poisonous fruit.

00:25:23 – 00:25:24:	And you see that.

00:25:24 – 00:25:30:	And homosexuality is one of the best examples because we are told that we have to tolerate

00:25:30 – 00:25:35:	this, that we have to permit this, that we have to let them live their lives as they

00:25:35 – 00:25:40:	see fit and we will live our lives as we see fit and that is not love.

00:25:40 – 00:25:44:	That is hatred for your fellow man because you are permitting them to merely dance their

00:25:44 – 00:25:46:	way into hell.

00:25:46 – 00:25:51:	And just look at the way they live their lives and the consequences of that lifestyle.

00:25:51 – 00:25:56:	We're not going to go into the details because we don't want to get a strike.

00:25:56 – 00:26:01:	We want to try to keep this at a level where people can listen to it after lunch.

00:26:01 – 00:26:09:	But the consequences for those who are living in that world are dire in this life and worse

00:26:09 – 00:26:14:	in the next and it is not love to permit them to do that.

00:26:14 – 00:26:20:	And when it comes to being comfortable and just permitting others to do as they please,

00:26:20 – 00:26:23:	you can look at this and you see this in our own churches.

00:26:23 – 00:26:27:	How many pastors preach against obesity?

00:26:27 – 00:26:35:	How many pastors preach from the pulpit against fornication against homosexuality, against

00:26:35 – 00:26:41:	any of the number of the very common, very widespread sins in our society.

00:26:41 – 00:26:45:	Obesity is probably one of the best examples because I have never actually heard a pastor

00:26:45 – 00:26:51:	preach against it despite the fact that it is rampant in our society.

00:26:51 – 00:26:54:	And they don't speak against it because it makes them uncomfortable to say it and they

00:26:54 – 00:26:58:	know they will be hated by others if they say it.

00:26:58 – 00:27:04:	But Scripture is very clear and you will be hated by all for my name's sake.

00:27:04 – 00:27:06:	That means you will be hated when you speak the truth.

00:27:06 – 00:27:10:	You will be hated when you preach truth to people.

00:27:10 – 00:27:11:	And you're doing it of course in love.

00:27:11 – 00:27:15:	You're not doing it in hatred but they will hate you in return for that.

00:27:15 – 00:27:18:	Their hatred of course is wicked because they are hating the good.

00:27:18 – 00:27:22:	And so it is possible to have hatred that is righteous, it is possible to have hatred

00:27:22 – 00:27:24:	that is wicked.

00:27:24 – 00:27:29:	And in the case of those who react with hatred against that which is good, that is a wicked

00:27:29 – 00:27:30:	hatred.

00:27:30 – 00:27:35:	As opposed to for instance in Hebrews quoting the Old Testament of course, but of the sun

00:27:35 – 00:27:37:	he says, your throne O God is forever and ever.

00:27:37 – 00:27:40:	The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

00:27:40 – 00:27:45:	You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

00:27:45 – 00:27:48:	That's a perfect love and a perfect hatred.

00:27:48 – 00:27:55:	And the object of both of those is important to note, loved righteousness, hated wickedness.

00:27:55 – 00:27:58:	That's perfect love and that's perfect hatred.

00:27:58 – 00:27:59:	And that is what a Christian is supposed to have.

00:27:59 – 00:28:01:	We are supposed to imitate Christ.

00:28:01 – 00:28:06:	And of course that is speaking of Christ, that verse in Hebrews citing the Old Testament.

00:28:06 – 00:28:12:	You had mentioned preaching and that's something we were discussing before we began recording

00:28:12 – 00:28:17:	this as we were talking about some of Christostom's, his own preaching.

00:28:17 – 00:28:22:	He's famous for preaching against drunkenness and against chariot races because those were

00:28:22 – 00:28:27:	the great debauched sins that were occurring in his own parish.

00:28:27 – 00:28:33:	The people to whom he was preaching were engaging in public sin that was grievous.

00:28:33 – 00:28:37:	They were, they were living pagan lives and then coming to church.

00:28:37 – 00:28:44:	And so when they came to church, he rightly as a faithful preacher condemned their sins.

00:28:44 – 00:28:48:	He didn't condemn far off hypothetical sins.

00:28:48 – 00:28:53:	He condemned the sins of the people in his pews or maybe they were standing up, but the

00:28:53 – 00:28:56:	people before him, he addressed their sin.

00:28:56 – 00:29:03:	And so this fear of why must serve love and so I cannot speak truthfully, which just

00:29:03 – 00:29:06:	on its face should make your skin crawl.

00:29:06 – 00:29:09:	Because that's clearly cannot be coming from God.

00:29:09 – 00:29:13:	It's not just about dealing with the world.

00:29:13 – 00:29:20:	It's very prevalent when we're dealing with disputes about doctrine and our own churches.

00:29:20 – 00:29:25:	From the Walther or from the Markwore paper, there's a brief Walther quote that I'd like

00:29:25 – 00:29:27:	to give here.

00:29:27 – 00:29:32:	Walther says, it has always been not so much the pure doctrine per se, which has aroused

00:29:32 – 00:29:35:	hostility against its representatives.

00:29:35 – 00:29:41:	Much less is that the case in our indifferent age, but taking it seriously, the exclusive adherence

00:29:41 – 00:29:46:	to it, the rejection and condemnation of the opposite doctrine, and above all the practical

00:29:46 – 00:29:54:	implementation of this doctrinal position, that is was, which at all times provoked hostility.

00:29:54 – 00:30:00:	So also the cardinal of Salzburg said that Luther's doctrine he would tolerate, but

00:30:00 – 00:30:05:	to allow oneself to be reformed out of a corner, that was not to be tolerated.

00:30:05 – 00:30:06:	So it still is today.

00:30:06 – 00:30:11:	What doctrine isn't one prepared to tolerate nowadays, if only it will stand peacefully

00:30:11 – 00:30:13:	beside the other doctrine.

00:30:13 – 00:30:19:	And just those who want to be orthodox accomplish the most incredible fears in this tolerance,

00:30:19 – 00:30:25:	only observe the harmonious relation, which shows itself in the academic colleges, the

00:30:25 – 00:30:30:	peaceable sitting together in pastoral conferences, the tone and the reviews.

00:30:30 – 00:30:37:	So Walther was seeing this 175 years ago that men would tolerate evil.

00:30:37 – 00:30:42:	They would tolerate violating the second commandment and lying about God as long as it meant

00:30:42 – 00:30:47:	that we could sit side by side, pretending to be brothers.

00:30:47 – 00:30:52:	And the brother and neighbor distinction we've talked about a little bit before and the

00:30:52 – 00:30:56:	matter of polarity when you're looking at Scripture, I think is important to address

00:30:56 – 00:30:58:	here again.

00:30:58 – 00:31:04:	There are many times in Jesus' own direct preaching where he had monishes not hating

00:31:04 – 00:31:07:	your brother.

00:31:07 – 00:31:08:	We have two brothers.

00:31:08 – 00:31:15:	We have brothers according to the flesh and we have brothers according to the Spirit.

00:31:15 – 00:31:19:	There are also those who are not your brothers in either.

00:31:19 – 00:31:25:	In almost every case, when Jesus is speaking of our brothers, he is speaking in the flesh.

00:31:25 – 00:31:30:	In other words, Jesus is speaking about our brothers inside the church.

00:31:30 – 00:31:35:	Those are brothers who are brothers because they have also been adopted through baptism

00:31:35 – 00:31:41:	into God's family, not as natural sons of God, but as adopted sons of God.

00:31:41 – 00:31:48:	And so you and I are brothers because God has given us faith and made us his own.

00:31:48 – 00:31:52:	Not through anything in ourselves, but solely through his action.

00:31:52 – 00:32:00:	And so many of the admonitions that are addressing hatred and anger and dissension and rivalries,

00:32:00 – 00:32:04:	they speak specifically in the context of brothers.

00:32:04 – 00:32:07:	Now this is a distinction that is lost on us today.

00:32:07 – 00:32:09:	We don't care what brother means anymore.

00:32:09 – 00:32:14:	We're told the babble brotherhood of man means every human being.

00:32:14 – 00:32:17:	But every time you meet someone, it's a Noah family reunion.

00:32:17 – 00:32:19:	And so we're all brothers.

00:32:19 – 00:32:22:	Well, that's simply not true.

00:32:22 – 00:32:26:	If someone is within the church, one set of rules applies.

00:32:26 – 00:32:30:	If someone is not in the church, another set of rules apply.

00:32:30 – 00:32:32:	Now, they're very similar.

00:32:32 – 00:32:34:	We're not saying that you can hate anyone who's not within the church.

00:32:34 – 00:32:37:	That's absolutely not what Jesus says.

00:32:37 – 00:32:44:	However, the specific admonitions regarding dissension and anger and strife and hatred have

00:32:44 – 00:32:51:	to do with those who are also sanctified by Christ's blood and who confess it.

00:32:51 – 00:32:57:	And so when we just say, well, those passages apply universally to all people, we're losing

00:32:57 – 00:32:59:	what God is actually saying.

00:32:59 – 00:33:01:	There are other places where He deals with that.

00:33:01 – 00:33:08:	But it's important just as I took a shot at Mr. Rogers a few weeks ago, because he

00:33:08 – 00:33:11:	collapsed neighbor and to being a universal.

00:33:11 – 00:33:16:	That anyone could be your main and your neighbor if you like them, we're told the same thing

00:33:16 – 00:33:17:	about brother.

00:33:17 – 00:33:19:	Anyone is your brother if you like them, right?

00:33:19 – 00:33:21:	And you're supposed to like everyone.

00:33:21 – 00:33:23:	So that makes everyone your brother.

00:33:23 – 00:33:28:	Well, that's not what God says, has not what that word means.

00:33:28 – 00:33:33:	And so as you're looking at the various verses dealing with love and with hatred, we are

00:33:33 – 00:33:38:	to love all men because all men are created in the image of God and are descended from

00:33:38 – 00:33:39:	Adam.

00:33:39 – 00:33:44:	However, that is not necessarily and it is not in fact the same love that we have within

00:33:44 – 00:33:46:	the body of Christ.

00:33:46 – 00:33:52:	The love that I have for quarry as a brother is different than the love that I am to

00:33:52 – 00:33:57:	have for a random human being halfway around the world.

00:33:57 – 00:34:01:	When that person on the other side of the world somehow becomes my neighbor, I am to love

00:34:01 – 00:34:05:	them as I love myself and that if they're hungry, I would feed them just as I would feed

00:34:05 – 00:34:06:	myself.

00:34:06 – 00:34:11:	And that is a type of love, but is not the fullness of love such as you would find within

00:34:11 – 00:34:12:	your own family.

00:34:12 – 00:34:17:	There are things that you will do for a mother or a wife or a son that you won't do for

00:34:17 – 00:34:19:	a stranger.

00:34:19 – 00:34:20:	And that's godly.

00:34:20 – 00:34:26:	And I think one of the dangers that we lose when we collapse, what we expand, neighbor

00:34:26 – 00:34:32:	and brother into being universal platitudes, we lose the distinctives that God has given

00:34:32 – 00:34:37:	us to address those specifically within our sphere to get back to what quarry was saying

00:34:37 – 00:34:38:	at the very beginning.

00:34:38 – 00:34:43:	We have offices in our lives to deal with certain people in certain ways.

00:34:43 – 00:34:48:	And that should always be done from a place of love, but that love sometimes requires

00:34:48 – 00:34:52:	things that to the world don't look like love.

00:34:52 – 00:34:58:	If a home invader breaks into your home at three in the morning, you use violence against

00:34:58 – 00:34:59:	him.

00:34:59 – 00:35:03:	You don't take it as an opportunity to spread the gospel to someone who clearly needs it.

00:35:03 – 00:35:08:	You use whatever violence is necessary to end the threat to protect your family.

00:35:08 – 00:35:09:	That is love.

00:35:09 – 00:35:11:	It is love for your family.

00:35:11 – 00:35:16:	And the man who breaks into your home intending harm and violence, he's receiving the

00:35:16 – 00:35:19:	due penalty for his sin.

00:35:19 – 00:35:27:	And your love for him has a neighbor momentarily is far less important, scripturally, than your

00:35:27 – 00:35:33:	love for your family, to whom you have an absolute duty to protect as their caretaker

00:35:33 – 00:35:35:	and on God's behalf.

00:35:35 – 00:35:38:	You mean you don't just point a camera phone at him, hope for the best?

00:35:38 – 00:35:45:	Yeah, you're not going to convict a man's conscience by pointing out to him the sinning.

00:35:45 – 00:35:50:	You restrain and you end the sin, and then you can go and visit him in jail if he survives,

00:35:50 – 00:35:55:	and you can tell him about Jesus, but yeah.

00:35:55 – 00:36:00:	Just to clarify for the Lutheran audience for those who are paying close attention,

00:36:00 – 00:36:04:	we do, of course, hold that the Yamagodei in man is lost through original sin when we

00:36:04 – 00:36:08:	speak of man being made in the image of God that is man is originally made, it is restored,

00:36:08 – 00:36:10:	of course, in Christ.

00:36:10 – 00:36:14:	That's a subject for another time.

00:36:14 – 00:36:21:	But when it comes to those who would set the various attributes of God against each other,

00:36:21 – 00:36:26:	or particularly in this case, those who would set love against truth or truth against love,

00:36:26 – 00:36:31:	it is important to remember the transcendentals we have spoken of them before, beauty, goodness

00:36:31 – 00:36:33:	and truth being the three core ones.

00:36:33 – 00:36:40:	There is never a time where these can be set against each other.

00:36:40 – 00:36:46:	If you are advocating that any of the attributes of God can be set against the other attributes

00:36:46 – 00:36:52:	of God, you are advocating for a split or division in the Godhead, and that simply cannot

00:36:52 – 00:36:53:	be.

00:36:53 – 00:36:54:	That is rank heresy.

00:36:54 – 00:37:00:	And so speaking the truth is not an act of hatred.

00:37:00 – 00:37:05:	Now I'm not saying that you couldn't possibly use the truth to hate someone.

00:37:05 – 00:37:10:	It is possible to use things that are good in themselves for evil.

00:37:10 – 00:37:16:	It is possible to turn the good things of God toward wicked ends, and that happens all

00:37:16 – 00:37:20:	the time that is what Satan frequently does.

00:37:20 – 00:37:27:	Sex is a good gift from God when it is in marriage between a man and his wife.

00:37:27 – 00:37:34:	Good in itself, but in the case of fornication or homosexuality or rape, it is being put toward

00:37:34 – 00:37:36:	an evil, a wicked end.

00:37:36 – 00:37:42:	And so it is possible, as I said, to use that which is good, that which is from God, even

00:37:42 – 00:37:47:	things that are good in themselves, like truth, to use them to attempt to work toward a

00:37:47 – 00:37:48:	wicked end.

00:37:48 – 00:37:55:	However, when those things in and of themselves are being set against each other, that is

00:37:55 – 00:38:01:	an indication that you are dealing with someone who is wicked, who has malice in his heart,

00:38:01 – 00:38:04:	who is attempting to cause you and others harm.

00:38:04 – 00:38:09:	And so someone tells you that you cannot speak the truth because that would be hateful.

00:38:09 – 00:38:12:	That person is a wicked liar and needs to be rebuked.

00:38:12 – 00:38:15:	Yes, there is a way to go about it.

00:38:15 – 00:38:17:	There are good ways to speak the truth.

00:38:17 – 00:38:20:	There are bad ways to speak the truth.

00:38:20 – 00:38:24:	But it is important and it is the duty of the Christian to speak the truth because that

00:38:24 – 00:38:27:	is actually showing love.

00:38:27 – 00:38:34:	And earlier in this episode, I mentioned that the word hate to get back to the topic for

00:38:34 – 00:38:38:	today appears throughout scripture.

00:38:38 – 00:38:41:	Coming to end, Genesis to Revelation.

00:38:41 – 00:38:47:	And so I'd just like to highlight how early on in scripture, hatred appears.

00:38:47 – 00:38:52:	And how near to the end of the scriptures, hatred appears, we'll start with the end,

00:38:52 – 00:38:57:	we'll start Revelation in Revelation 2.6.

00:38:57 – 00:39:02:	Yet this you have, you hate the works of the Nicolaytans, which I also hate.

00:39:02 – 00:39:10:	That is Christ speaking, commending Christians for hating and saying that he himself hates.

00:39:10 – 00:39:12:	God hates wickedness.

00:39:12 – 00:39:16:	That's what he's saying that he hates, he's hating the work of false teachers.

00:39:16 – 00:39:18:	That is a perfect hatred.

00:39:18 – 00:39:22:	Just a bit of a bit of context in Revelation 2.

00:39:22 – 00:39:26:	That's one of the letters that Jesus is writing to the seven churches.

00:39:26 – 00:39:31:	And in that passage, when he's addressing them, he's kind of dressing them down.

00:39:31 – 00:39:34:	He's saying, you guys are screwing a bunch of stuff up.

00:39:34 – 00:39:39:	One of the only things that Jesus commends that church for is their hatred.

00:39:39 – 00:39:41:	Go read Revelation 2.

00:39:41 – 00:39:46:	When you read it clearly with these eyes, it's stark that the thing which God commends

00:39:46 – 00:39:50:	of them, and that the other churches have their own strengths and weaknesses, but one

00:39:50 – 00:39:54:	of the only things that that church is getting, right, is it's hatred?

00:39:54 – 00:40:00:	I think that's a point that cannot be ignored because, again, we're talking about

00:40:00 – 00:40:03:	God's nature and God's will.

00:40:03 – 00:40:09:	And if God is commending a church for its hatred over against their other failings, we can't

00:40:09 – 00:40:10:	ignore that as Christians.

00:40:10 – 00:40:14:	And we cannot say that hatred is always per se evil.

00:40:14 – 00:40:18:	We must acknowledge that there are times and places when not only is it permissible,

00:40:18 – 00:40:22:	but it's required and started before I'd stop interrupting you.

00:40:22 – 00:40:23:	Of course.

00:40:23 – 00:40:28:	You may, you highlighted the point how often love and truth are set in opposition.

00:40:28 – 00:40:32:	That's one of the things that's very much a point in Markov's paper as well.

00:40:32 – 00:40:34:	We see this all the time.

00:40:34 – 00:40:40:	The pastors who personally hate, quarry, and I, for the things that we say and for the things

00:40:40 – 00:40:44:	that we say in this podcast, they hate us for telling the truth.

00:40:44 – 00:40:47:	They hate us for saying what is in Scripture.

00:40:47 – 00:40:51:	Just as God promised, the righteous would be persecuted by evil doers.

00:40:51 – 00:40:57:	It's the charges of lovelessness, but the accusation has never falsehood.

00:40:57 – 00:40:59:	And truth has spoken.

00:40:59 – 00:41:01:	The accusation is lovelessness.

00:41:01 – 00:41:07:	And I think that we have to pay extremely careful attention when we see this playing out.

00:41:07 – 00:41:10:	Because again, there's a demon named love.

00:41:10 – 00:41:16:	Just as love is part of God's nature, there is a demon that is named love that is worshiped

00:41:16 – 00:41:17:	by this world.

00:41:17 – 00:41:20:	It is worshiped by the worst people in this world.

00:41:20 – 00:41:25:	And when they say do this in the name of love, they're wanting you to think that they're

00:41:25 – 00:41:27:	talking about God when they're not.

00:41:27 – 00:41:29:	They're talking about something else.

00:41:29 – 00:41:35:	And if truth is destroyed by love, that is not love that comes from God.

00:41:35 – 00:41:39:	Because as this quarry said, God cannot be set in opposition to Himself.

00:41:39 – 00:41:46:	And it's worth emphasizing again, Christ says, which I also hate.

00:41:46 – 00:41:50:	He is commending them because they are imitating Him because they are hating the things that He

00:41:50 – 00:41:51:	hates.

00:41:51 – 00:41:54:	And again, that is perfect hatred.

00:41:54 – 00:42:01:	And so to switch to Genesis then, the beginning of Scripture, well, this is the more important

00:42:01 – 00:42:02:	one.

00:42:02 – 00:42:04:	That's why I've left it for a second.

00:42:04 – 00:42:09:	Genesis 3.15, which of course is the proto-Avangelian.

00:42:09 – 00:42:14:	I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

00:42:14 – 00:42:18:	He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

00:42:18 – 00:42:23:	And of course that word enmity there has the lexical scope of hatred.

00:42:23 – 00:42:29:	That's what enmity is, enmity is hatred to give you the dictionary definition, enmity

00:42:29 – 00:42:36:	is the quality of being an enemy, the opposite of friendship, ill will, hatred, malevolence.

00:42:36 – 00:42:43:	That is what is spoken of there and that is the first instance of the gospel in Scripture.

00:42:43 – 00:42:48:	The first instance of the gospel does not have the word love in it, but it has the word

00:42:48 – 00:42:49:	hate in it.

00:42:49 – 00:42:54:	And so you have hate from the beginning of Scripture to the end of Scripture.

00:42:54 – 00:43:00:	And to be very clear, we are still saying that hate is not an intrinsically good part

00:43:00 – 00:43:01:	of creation.

00:43:01 – 00:43:06:	Hate is intrinsically good when it is properly directed because it is directed toward

00:43:06 – 00:43:12:	that which is evil, but it was not God's original intent for hatred to be part of creation

00:43:12 – 00:43:14:	because it did not need to be part.

00:43:14 – 00:43:20:	It entered into creation through disobedience, through wickedness.

00:43:20 – 00:43:24:	It of course will be removed in the new heavens and the new earth.

00:43:24 – 00:43:30:	But in so far as we are still in this life, hatred is part of the Christian life and it

00:43:30 – 00:43:32:	is a necessary part of the Christian life.

00:43:32 – 00:43:33:	It is not an optional part.

00:43:33 – 00:43:37:	It is not something that we can set aside that we can say, well, we are Christians so

00:43:37 – 00:43:38:	we only love.

00:43:38 – 00:43:44:	No, in order to have love in this life, you must also have hatred because you must hate

00:43:44 – 00:43:47:	that which is evil and love that which is good.

00:43:47 – 00:43:53:	I think probably the single best demonstration in Scripture of this polarity that we so

00:43:53 – 00:43:57:	often focus on, you know, we've talked in the past about things that are abominations

00:43:57 – 00:44:01:	and we pointed out abomination to whom.

00:44:01 – 00:44:05:	When we talk about hatred and particularly perfect hatred and I'm going to give you the

00:44:05 – 00:44:11:	passage where that exact phrase is used by God to describe what he desires.

00:44:11 – 00:44:18:	It's important to understand when we talk about enemies, there are our enemies and there

00:44:18 – 00:44:22:	are God's enemies and sometimes they're the same people.

00:44:22 – 00:44:28:	And so when you look at the passage where Jesus says to turn the other cheek, for one

00:44:28 – 00:44:33:	thing, the turning of a cheek when someone slaps you, if you look at the hand that Jesus

00:44:33 – 00:44:38:	references, it's the hand that they use to wipe their behinds after they did their business.

00:44:38 – 00:44:45:	So it wasn't an act of violence that Jesus was describing, it was a profound personal insult.

00:44:45 – 00:44:51:	It was an attack on ego, it was a public humiliation to slap someone with that hand.

00:44:51 – 00:44:56:	And Jesus was telling them if someone humiliates you like that, turn the other cheek, don't

00:44:56 – 00:45:01:	respond in kind because that person is acting as your enemy.

00:45:01 – 00:45:09:	In Psalm 139, Jesus references the same sort of hatred that he commends in Revelation

00:45:09 – 00:45:17:	2, David writes, oh that you would slay the wicked, oh God, oh men of blood depart from

00:45:17 – 00:45:18:	me.

00:45:18 – 00:45:23:	They speak against you with malicious intent, your enemies, take your name in vain.

00:45:23 – 00:45:30:	Do I not hate those who hate you, oh Lord, and do I not loathe those who rise up against

00:45:30 – 00:45:37:	you, I hate them with perfect hatred, I count them my enemies, search me, oh God, and

00:45:37 – 00:45:42:	know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me,

00:45:42 – 00:45:46:	and lead me in the way everlasting.

00:45:46 – 00:45:52:	Now I included the last couple verses there because at the end of Psalm 139, David appeals

00:45:52 – 00:45:58:	to God for a clean conscience, which eliminates any possibility of doubt that maybe David was

00:45:58 – 00:46:02:	describing something sinful, which is an accusation that's made in one of the other papers

00:46:02 – 00:46:05:	that we will link.

00:46:05 – 00:46:10:	When David is describing this, he is describing the opposite polarity of enemy.

00:46:10 – 00:46:17:	Go read Psalm 139 again for yourself, it's a beautiful psalm, and the first part of

00:46:17 – 00:46:25:	is actually very often used in pro-life contexts, but the end of it is about hating God's enemies.

00:46:26 – 00:46:30:	The psalms are filled with David striving against his own enemies and crying out to God

00:46:30 – 00:46:33:	for mercy and help.

00:46:33 – 00:46:40:	In Psalm 139, the enemies that David is describing are explicitly enemies of God.

00:46:40 – 00:46:47:	Now as we've said before, of God means something, enemy of God doesn't mean the same as enemy

00:46:47 – 00:46:49:	of mine.

00:46:49 – 00:46:55:	They're men who hate me, who hate me for saying the things that God says.

00:46:55 – 00:47:01:	Only there are some days when I struggle to respond to that in a godly way, both in my

00:47:01 – 00:47:06:	heart and what I'd say out loud either year or on the internet.

00:47:06 – 00:47:13:	But I always, in order to try to remain in accord with God's will, I focus on what is

00:47:13 – 00:47:20:	it they're hating because if a man hates me for saying what God says, it's not really

00:47:20 – 00:47:28:	even me that he's hating, as Quarry quoted previously, when people hate us for the sake

00:47:28 – 00:47:32:	of God, it is God that they hate fundamentally and exclusively.

00:47:32 – 00:47:36:	We just happen to be the messengers, and that was what the Old Testament prophets faced

00:47:36 – 00:47:38:	over and over again.

00:47:38 – 00:47:42:	They were persecuted, they were murdered, they were chased, and the same thing happened

00:47:42 – 00:47:44:	to John the Baptist and to Jesus.

00:47:44 – 00:47:50:	When someone comes and says what God says to people who hate God, they're usually hated

00:47:50 – 00:47:54:	and killed, occasionally they're listened to, but that is up to God.

00:47:54 – 00:48:02:	God determines whether or not those who hear his word are going to, well, that's a free

00:48:02 – 00:48:03:	will question.

00:48:03 – 00:48:06:	I'm not sure how to finish that sentence cleanly.

00:48:06 – 00:48:13:	There are times when, see, it's another episode, yes.

00:48:13 – 00:48:18:	When God acts in this life, what we need to focus on is that when we are acting in accord

00:48:18 – 00:48:24:	with what God says and we're hated for it, those aren't our enemies.

00:48:24 – 00:48:29:	When these pastors, like Don Stein, who was actually recently in public with a group

00:48:29 – 00:48:37:	of pastors, asked the other pastors to pray to God against this podcast, what do you say

00:48:37 – 00:48:39:	to that?

00:48:39 – 00:48:44:	When God says that we shouldn't judge, judge not, that's what he's talking about, because

00:48:44 – 00:48:48:	God alone can do the math on whose prayers he listens to.

00:48:48 – 00:48:53:	Does he listen to the prayer of the men who are serving him faithfully?

00:48:53 – 00:48:59:	Or does he listen to the prayer of the men who are asking God to strike those men down?

00:48:59 – 00:49:01:	God can sort that out, and so we don't have to worry about it.

00:49:01 – 00:49:09:	So while there is enmity between men, the focus in the Christian life means needs to be

00:49:09 – 00:49:12:	against whom is the hatred directed?

00:49:12 – 00:49:18:	And it's coming in, if someone hates you for being a Christian, Scripture says to rejoice.

00:49:18 – 00:49:22:	You should give thanks when you're hated for his sake.

00:49:22 – 00:49:25:	That is a type of martyrdom.

00:49:25 – 00:49:30:	And we shouldn't feel bad about that.

00:49:30 – 00:49:37:	It doesn't feel great, but it is something to give thanks to God for because the alternative

00:49:37 – 00:49:42:	is to not say what God says, and therefore to not be hated by the world that is ruled

00:49:42 – 00:49:47:	by the prince of this dark age who cloaks himself in the name of love.

00:49:47 – 00:49:54:	And so when we as Christians hate God's enemies, hate those who hate God, that is obedience

00:49:54 – 00:49:55:	to God.

00:49:55 – 00:49:56:	Full stop.

00:49:56 – 00:50:01:	There could be no argument, or you have to reject Psalm 139 and all of the other passages

00:50:01 – 00:50:05:	that you know, Corey mentioned hundreds and hundreds of times in Scripture, where it

00:50:05 – 00:50:13:	is clearly said that hatred of God's enemies, that hatred of evil is obedience to God.

00:50:13 – 00:50:18:	Proverbs 8 says, the fear of the Lord is hatred of evil.

00:50:18 – 00:50:22:	And one of the mistakes that some pastors make when they're trying to thread the needle

00:50:22 – 00:50:27:	on this and make sure the people don't go too far with their hating, they'll say things

00:50:27 – 00:50:31:	like, we have no enemy, but Satan, but that's simply not true.

00:50:31 – 00:50:35:	That's absolutely contrary to what Scripture says.

00:50:35 – 00:50:37:	We absolutely have enemies.

00:50:37 – 00:50:41:	Some of them are just enemies because they don't like us for whatever reason.

00:50:41 – 00:50:46:	There are other enemies who hate us because we're God's children, and God's children

00:50:46 – 00:50:51:	will be hated by the prince of this world and by his own children, because both God and

00:50:51 – 00:50:52:	the devil have children.

00:50:52 – 00:50:56:	And everybody has one father or the other.

00:50:56 – 00:50:58:	There's no third option there.

00:50:58 – 00:51:04:	And when we speak of hatred, as we're evaluating it, as we're thinking about it, and as

00:51:04 – 00:51:07:	I said, like, I struggle, this is sometimes I fail.

00:51:07 – 00:51:12:	Someone directs something at me, and my first instinct is to shoot right back twice

00:51:12 – 00:51:19:	as hard, and I don't always do what God wants me to do.

00:51:19 – 00:51:23:	But when I look at my own actions and I look at the actions in the world, my first concern

00:51:23 – 00:51:26:	is not, did that person make me feel bad?

00:51:26 – 00:51:27:	Did he hurt my feelings?

00:51:27 – 00:51:30:	Did he say something mean?

00:51:30 – 00:51:37:	My first concern is his, my will and my actions aligned with what God commands and desires.

00:51:37 – 00:51:43:	And if they are, are the other man's actions and is aligned with God's will and his desires?

00:51:43 – 00:51:44:	And then I go from there.

00:51:44 – 00:51:48:	I think that that's what all of us need to spend more time focusing on.

00:51:48 – 00:51:51:	What is God's actual will?

00:51:51 – 00:51:55:	Because we've been, it's all been collapsed into this bumper sticker theology where we've

00:51:55 – 00:51:58:	all come to believe what God's will is love, right?

00:51:58 – 00:52:00:	I mean, God's will is love.

00:52:00 – 00:52:06:	That's like, it's such a trope that it's difficult for Christians to push back because we

00:52:06 – 00:52:10:	don't have the words, because the words are not being given to us by our teachers who

00:52:10 – 00:52:17:	will clearly say, someone who is doing evil and the name of love is a child of Satan.

00:52:17 – 00:52:22:	And the fact that they're cloaking themselves in light is no surprise.

00:52:22 – 00:52:23:	That's what their father does.

00:52:23 – 00:52:30:	So with Lucifer, the lightbringer, the demon who cloaks himself in light is of course

00:52:30 – 00:52:35:	going to be appealing because that's how he gets people to be suckered.

00:52:35 – 00:52:40:	It's important as a Christian who has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to listen to God's

00:52:40 – 00:52:44:	voice in all things, not just the things that make us feel good and not just the things

00:52:44 – 00:52:47:	that let us off the hook.

00:52:47 – 00:52:52:	As I say repeatedly, when I read scripture, I find myself condemned.

00:52:52 – 00:52:53:	That means it's working.

00:52:53 – 00:52:58:	That means that the Holy Spirit is saying, yeah, I'm telling you, you need to obey God

00:52:58 – 00:52:59:	when you do these things.

00:52:59 – 00:53:04:	You need to obey me because as God's speaking, we all need to focus on that.

00:53:04 – 00:53:12:	And that will sometimes mean that there is outgoing hatred, not in a counter battery,

00:53:12 – 00:53:16:	not in returning fire, but that there must be hatred of that which is contrary to God's

00:53:16 – 00:53:17:	will.

00:53:17 – 00:53:21:	And when we are personally involved with it, that's when it becomes very difficult because

00:53:22 – 00:53:28:	we are naturally fallen and we will naturally go further than God permits and do things

00:53:28 – 00:53:30:	that God does not condone.

00:53:30 – 00:53:34:	And that's why it's so important to understand this clearly, first on our own hearts and

00:53:34 – 00:53:39:	minds, so that we're always judging our own actions first and any actions of others

00:53:39 – 00:53:43:	by the measuring stick that God has given us in scripture.

00:53:43 – 00:53:49:	And really today, the pastors who stand up and condemn hatred by and large are acting

00:53:49 – 00:53:55:	like fools because it's just not a problem in our churches these days.

00:53:55 – 00:54:03:	Now in some of the liberal, to use the term in a technical sense, denominations, it is

00:54:03 – 00:54:09:	very much a problem because they have a specific hatred for specific groups, for specific reasons.

00:54:09 – 00:54:16:	We can get into that eventually in another episode, but by and large in traditional Christian

00:54:16 – 00:54:19:	denominations and churches, hatred just isn't a problem.

00:54:19 – 00:54:20:	The exact opposite is the problem.

00:54:20 – 00:54:22:	There's no hatred.

00:54:22 – 00:54:28:	It's all permissiveness and this 60s sense of love and live and let be.

00:54:28 – 00:54:34:	And so the pastor is condemning a sin that isn't even present in his congregation.

00:54:34 – 00:54:39:	And that's if he's even condemning it in terms that are the terms related to the sin and

00:54:39 – 00:54:46:	not the modern misconception, it would be as if a pastor today stood up and condemned

00:54:46 – 00:54:47:	charioteering.

00:54:47 – 00:54:52:	Okay, yes, for Christ's system, that was relevant today, not so much.

00:54:52 – 00:54:55:	I don't think very many people are going out to the track and betting on chariot races

00:54:55 – 00:54:58:	very often in our churches anymore.

00:54:58 – 00:55:03:	And so it's again, pastors are supposed to speak to the congregation about the things

00:55:03 – 00:55:08:	that apply to the congregation, not some far off sin of some other people that is a

00:55:08 – 00:55:10:	relevant to the congregation.

00:55:10 – 00:55:11:	Is it still sin?

00:55:11 – 00:55:16:	Yes, but if it's not a problem in your congregation, why are you spending time?

00:55:16 – 00:55:22:	Hounding your congregation about something that doesn't apply to them at present.

00:55:22 – 00:55:30:	Now I also want to turn back to Psalm 139 for a moment and focus on that word that is translated

00:55:30 – 00:55:35:	as perfect or complete depends on which translation you are reading in the ESV, it's complete

00:55:35 – 00:55:37:	hatred.

00:55:37 – 00:55:43:	The word there is teleos and that is of course related to telos, telos meaning end.

00:55:43 – 00:55:49:	So teleology is dealing with the end of things or the purpose of things, but I'm doing

00:55:49 – 00:55:55:	philosophy or theology, but what that word means is perfect or complete or mature.

00:55:55 – 00:56:02:	It is a hatred that is properly directed toward a rightful end.

00:56:02 – 00:56:05:	And that is the whole point that we're making about hatred.

00:56:05 – 00:56:10:	That is what is being said in that Psalm Psalm 139.

00:56:10 – 00:56:16:	A perfect hatred is a hatred that is properly directed toward a proper end.

00:56:16 – 00:56:22:	And in this case, it is the hatred of God's enemies, and if you hate God's enemies,

00:56:22 – 00:56:29:	that is a perfect hatred because it is properly directed toward the enemies of God.

00:56:29 – 00:56:31:	And that is a proper end for hatred.

00:56:31 – 00:56:37:	I want to give a few verses here just to give some specific scriptural warrant for when

00:56:37 – 00:56:41:	and how hatred is appropriate among believers.

00:56:41 – 00:56:46:	You mean we're not going to read just the entirety of the poetry or the wisdom literature?

00:56:46 – 00:56:49:	I guess not all of it because not Job and Song of Solomon.

00:56:49 – 00:56:54:	So just the big chunk, the core in the middle, Psalm proverbs and ecclesiastes.

00:56:54 – 00:56:56:	Yeah, exactly.

00:56:56 – 00:57:01:	I, when I was looking, it was mostly in those passages, which shouldn't be surprising,

00:57:01 – 00:57:06:	but we'll discuss what it means in a minute.

00:57:06 – 00:57:08:	Psalm 97 says,

00:57:08 – 00:57:11:	O you who love the Lord hate evil.

00:57:11 – 00:57:13:	He preserves the lives of his saints.

00:57:13 – 00:57:16:	He delivered the stem from the hand of the wicked.

00:57:16 – 00:57:21:	In Psalm 11, it says, the Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one

00:57:21 – 00:57:25:	who loves violence.

00:57:25 – 00:57:29:	In Psalm 45, you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

00:57:29 – 00:57:34:	Therefore God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

00:57:34 – 00:57:38:	That of course is the verse that was referred to in Hebrews earlier.

00:57:38 – 00:57:40:	God says in Psalm 26,

00:57:40 – 00:57:44:	I hate the assembly of evil doers and I will not sit with the wicked.

00:57:44 – 00:57:46:	In Psalm 31, he says,

00:57:46 – 00:57:52:	I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the Lord.

00:57:52 – 00:57:54:	This is the longest one that I want to focus on.

00:57:54 – 00:57:59:	There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him,

00:57:59 – 00:58:04:	potty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

00:58:04 – 00:58:07:	a heart that devises wicked plans,

00:58:07 – 00:58:10:	feet that make haste to run to evil,

00:58:10 – 00:58:13:	a false witness who breathes out lies,

00:58:13 – 00:58:15:	and one who soes discord among brothers.

00:58:15 – 00:58:18:	That's from Proverbs 6.

00:58:18 – 00:58:22:	Now, as we mentioned earlier, truth and lying show up a couple times here

00:58:22 – 00:58:24:	as things that God hates.

00:58:24 – 00:58:28:	It is not lovelessness that he condemns, although that's condemned elsewhere,

00:58:28 – 00:58:33:	but here, God specifically condemns falsehoods, falsehoods that are slander,

00:58:33 – 00:58:36:	falsehoods that are simply false on their face.

00:58:36 – 00:58:42:	In particular, I want to focus on God's hatred of one who soes discord among brothers,

00:58:42 – 00:58:47:	because that was the focus in part of the Markquart paper.

00:58:47 – 00:58:51:	It's a focus of what is directed against Cory and I for this podcast

00:58:51 – 00:58:53:	and for the other things that we say.

00:58:53 – 00:58:59:	And again, the word brother is there, which means in the church among Christians.

00:58:59 – 00:59:03:	Now, scripture, we'll talk about this in another episode, but...

00:59:03 – 00:59:08:	Discord does not simply mean that there's disagreement,

00:59:08 – 00:59:11:	or rather, when there is discord among brothers,

00:59:11 – 00:59:15:	it means that there is falsehood among brothers, first and foremost.

00:59:15 – 00:59:21:	There can be no dispute among Christians that is not based on lies.

00:59:21 – 00:59:27:	And so when discord arises, again, to get back to the mention early on

00:59:27 – 00:59:34:	of distinguishing between the fact and the feeling that arises from encountering the fact,

00:59:34 – 00:59:40:	so often today, when there is discord among believers,

00:59:40 – 00:59:44:	the finger is pointed by those who would charge lovelessness

00:59:44 – 00:59:47:	against the one who has raised the alarm,

00:59:47 – 00:59:51:	against the man who has said, wait, stop what you're doing,

00:59:51 – 00:59:54:	stop what you're saying, scripture says something different.

00:59:54 – 00:59:57:	Let's get back on the same page as God.

59:57 – 01:00:03
The man who charges lovelessness is attacking the man who speaks of scripture.

01:00:03 – 01:00:09:	And so that when there are discussions of discord among believers,

01:00:09 – 01:00:15:	again, polarity comes into play, from whom was the discord introduced,

01:00:15 – 01:00:18:	was the discord introduced by the man who pulled the fire alarm,

01:00:18 – 01:00:22:	or was the discord introduced by the man who lit the match.

01:00:22 – 01:00:27:	The contention that Kory and I have is that we as the stones who cry out,

01:00:27 – 01:00:30:	we as the men who are pulling the fire alarm,

01:00:30 – 01:00:34:	are pointing out that a fire has already started among us,

01:00:34 – 01:00:39:	and that the discord was started by those who speak contrary to scripture.

01:00:39 – 01:00:43:	Now, every man has to figure this out for himself by looking to scripture,

01:00:43 – 01:00:47:	who is in agreement with God, and who is not.

01:00:47 – 01:00:50:	Behavior is one thing and feelings are one thing,

01:00:50 – 01:00:54:	but the truth is immutable and the truth is knowable.

01:00:54 – 01:00:57:	As we talked about in the episode on the persecutory of scripture,

01:00:57 – 01:01:01:	you can absolutely understand what God is saying about these things.

01:01:01 – 01:01:04:	It's not a mystery what God wants us to do,

01:01:04 – 01:01:08:	and it's not a mystery what God declares to us.

01:01:08 – 01:01:15:	And so when men will seek to undermine the church by saying things that are confusing,

01:01:15 – 01:01:19:	that are false, that lead us further away from God says,

01:01:19 – 01:01:23:	including leading us further away from being able to hate,

01:01:23 – 01:01:27:	that which is contrary to God's will, they are sowing discord.

01:01:27 – 01:01:30:	They are sowing the discord that God hates.

01:01:30 – 01:01:34:	And when the second man speaks, and maybe he shouts,

01:01:34 – 01:01:36:	maybe his tone of voice is very tense,

01:01:36 – 01:01:40:	because a man has just lit a fire in the midst of a church,

01:01:40 – 01:01:43:	and he says, stop what you're doing. This is evil.

01:01:43 – 01:01:45:	We must stop it immediately.

01:01:45 – 01:01:49:	That man will immediately be accused of causing discord.

01:01:49 – 01:01:52:	As Christians, we have to figure out where it's coming from.

01:01:52 – 01:01:56:	Is the man who raises the alarm, or is the man who spreads the lie,

01:01:56 – 01:01:59:	the one who is doing the evil?

01:01:59 – 01:02:02:	It's a question that obviously we know what we think,

01:02:02 – 01:02:05:	and we act with a clean conscience in these matters.

01:02:05 – 01:02:08:	You as observers, and you as participants in other places,

01:02:08 – 01:02:13:	must think for yourselves from whom is the discord arising?

01:02:13 – 01:02:16:	Is it he who speaks contrary to scripture,

01:02:16 – 01:02:19:	or is it he who cares enough about pure doctrine,

01:02:19 – 01:02:22:	that he will fight, even if it means fighting someone

01:02:22 – 01:02:25:	who, on paper, is inside the church.

01:02:25 – 01:02:28:	And this is one of the really tough things about what in the church means,

01:02:28 – 01:02:31:	and what a brother in Christ means,

01:02:31 – 01:02:35:	because in the church means that we are part of the body

01:02:36 – 01:02:40:	and there is nothing imperfect or evil in the body of Christ.

01:02:40 – 01:02:42:	Now obviously that doesn't exclude sinners,

01:02:42 – 01:02:44:	because otherwise it would be a headless church.

01:02:44 – 01:02:45:	There'd be nothing in it.

01:02:46 – 01:02:49:	But it is important to focus on the fact that

01:02:49 – 01:02:51:	when men are acting in evil ways,

01:02:52 – 01:02:55:	they are saying, I am not a brother.

01:02:55 – 01:02:57:	I am no longer your brother in Christ.

01:02:57 – 01:02:59:	I am like Adam in the garden.

01:02:59 – 01:03:00:	I am my own God.

01:03:00 – 01:03:03:	I am serving the God who is named love,

01:03:03 – 01:03:07:	and not the God from whom the love we have been given flows.

01:03:08 – 01:03:11:	Distinguishing between the two is not obvious.

01:03:11 – 01:03:13:	It's not some of the fix on a bumper sticker.

01:03:13 – 01:03:17:	But the fact that we continue to fail to discern these matters clearly

01:03:17 – 01:03:21:	is precisely why our churches continue to decay

01:03:21 – 01:03:23:	and our hearts continue to grow cold,

01:03:23 – 01:03:26:	because we're not listening to God's voice.

01:03:26 – 01:03:30:	We're listening to the age of Aquarius as the tune plays on.

01:03:30 – 01:03:33:	And the further and further we get from God,

01:03:33 – 01:03:35:	the more we sound like we're still doing Jesus-y stuff.

01:03:35 – 01:03:37:	We're still talking about love,

01:03:37 – 01:03:39:	but it's not the love that comes from God.

01:03:39 – 01:03:41:	It's just something else entirely.

01:03:41 – 01:03:45:	So you went through a few verses there that had to deal with hatred.

01:03:45 – 01:03:47:	And there, of course, many of them, as mentioned earlier,

01:03:47 – 01:03:51:	there are many instances of these words in scripture.

01:03:52 – 01:03:54:	We had pretty much the same list for the Psalter.

01:03:54 – 01:03:55:	One other one that I had was Psalm 5,

01:03:55 – 01:03:56:	which, of course, says,

01:03:56 – 01:03:58:	the boastful shall not stand before your eyes.

01:03:59 – 01:04:01:	You hate all evil-doers.

01:04:01 – 01:04:05:	And of course, that is a prophet saying that God hates evil.

01:04:05 – 01:04:07:	God hates evil-doers.

01:04:07 – 01:04:11:	That is actually one thing that some modern pastors

01:04:11 – 01:04:15:	and others like to try to weasel out of hatred by saying,

01:04:15 – 01:04:17:	no, no, no, God hates sin.

01:04:17 – 01:04:18:	God doesn't hate the sinner.

01:04:18 – 01:04:20:	Well, scripture is very clear.

01:04:20 – 01:04:22:	You hate all evil-doers.

01:04:23 – 01:04:25:	God hates sinners.

01:04:25 – 01:04:28:	It, in fact, doesn't really even make sense just to hate sin,

01:04:28 – 01:04:30:	because without sinners, there's no sin.

01:04:32 – 01:04:36:	And so, no, it's God hates sin and sinners.

01:04:36 – 01:04:38:	God hates evil and evil-doers.

01:04:38 – 01:04:41:	You cannot speak of him hating one and not the other.

01:04:41 – 01:04:43:	That is to lie about what scripture says.

01:04:45 – 01:04:49:	But to get back to the frequency with which these terms appear,

01:04:49 – 01:04:54:	some may have noticed that there is a difference in the frequency

01:04:54 – 01:04:56:	between the new and the Old Testament.

01:04:56 – 01:04:59:	It may have been hard to note just when I was going through very briefly.

01:05:00 – 01:05:05:	But yes, the words related to hatred do appear more frequently

01:05:06 – 01:05:07:	in the Old Testament.

01:05:07 – 01:05:11:	And so, of course, there are some who will try to make something of that.

01:05:12 – 01:05:15:	But that's really just bringing up an ancient heresy

01:05:16 – 01:05:18:	that, of course, continues to rear its head.

01:05:18 – 01:05:20:	Because the demon, responsible for that,

01:05:21 – 01:05:25:	still around and will still try to subvert the church by saying,

01:05:25 – 01:05:29:	is the God of the Old Testament really the God of the New Testament?

01:05:29 – 01:05:31:	And the answer, of course, is yes, because God does not change.

01:05:31 – 01:05:36:	One of the papers that we're going to link is one that I wrote about two years ago,

01:05:36 – 01:05:41:	in response to a paper written by Reverend Dr. Jeff Gibbs,

01:05:42 – 01:05:46:	retired recently from the St. Louis seminary of the Missouri Senate.

01:05:47 – 01:05:52:	He wrote a paper on righteous anger, the term that he used, basically condemning it.

01:05:52 – 01:05:56:	And if, in effect, his argument, it was like a 20-page paper,

01:05:56 – 01:05:58:	but the gist of it was essentially,

01:06:00 – 01:06:07:	while technically it might be scriptural to say that something like righteous anger might

01:06:07 – 01:06:12:	possibly exist, humans are so sensible that we can never possibly get it right.

01:06:12 – 01:06:15:	So, it's better if we just never have any anger at all.

01:06:16 – 01:06:21:	In effect, he was condemning outright any anger in the hearts of any Christians for any reason,

01:06:21 – 01:06:29:	whatsoever. And the principal logical fallacy that he made in that error,

01:06:29 – 01:06:35:	there was the premise of his paper, was that he saw anger as strictly an emotional thing,

01:06:35 – 01:06:44:	that it's an upwelling of a feeling disconnected from fact, and without regard to the fact,

01:06:44 – 01:06:50:	either the emotion is right or wrong. And so when scripture is speaking of anger and of hatred,

01:06:51 – 01:06:55:	Gibbs contention was the scripture is only speaking of emotions.

01:06:56 – 01:07:01:	And the contention that we're making here in this presentation that I make in the paper separately

01:07:01 – 01:07:07:	is that this isn't about emotion at all, at least not principally. When God hates sin

01:07:07 – 01:07:14:	and God hates the wicked, that is the evil doers, the men who are wicked, that's not emotion.

01:07:14 – 01:07:20:	That's not in any human sense, and it's not just that God's not human, so he works differently.

01:07:20 – 01:07:26:	It's that again, that which is evil is contrary to God's nature. He hates and abours that,

01:07:26 – 01:07:33:	which is contrary to himself, and he will destroy it eternally and fire. That is his perfect will.

01:07:34 – 01:07:40:	That's not emotional, that's judgment. Now, I mentioned the judge not passage earlier,

01:07:40 – 01:07:46:	and I think I mentioned this before, but it's worth reiterating. We all know if we've ever

01:07:46 – 01:07:50:	watched a corporate procedure or anything. There are two different kinds of judgment. There's

01:07:50 – 01:07:55:	the judgment of fact, which is done by the jury, and there's the judgment of sentence, which is

01:07:55 – 01:08:03:	given by the judge. When God instructs Christians to judge not, he's referring to the second.

01:08:03 – 01:08:10:	He is saying that when a man like Don Stein imprecates us before the church and says that God

01:08:11 – 01:08:17:	must restrain us because we're evil, only God can figure out how to do the math on that mess.

01:08:17 – 01:08:24:	We, as humans, don't know what the final disposition of that will be. Is Don Stein damned,

01:08:24 – 01:08:30:	because he prayed a damnable prayer and involved other pastors in his wickedness? I don't know.

01:08:30 – 01:08:37:	I hope not. I hope that he'll repent for this ongoing sin. I cannot judge the final disposition of

01:08:37 – 01:08:43:	those acts, but I can tell you with an absolute certainty that I judge those acts to be wicked on

01:08:43 – 01:08:50:	their face, because the lies and the deception in the malice that got to the point that those

01:08:50 – 01:08:57:	prayers were said in public are profoundly and obviously evil. They're obviously contrary to God.

01:08:57 – 01:09:04:	That is wickedness. And as a member of the body of Christ, not only am I equipped to judge as a

01:09:04 – 01:09:11:	jurist, whether or not something is sinful, I am obligated to do so. And when it is a public sin,

01:09:11 – 01:09:18:	as was in the case of Don Stein's sin at this pastoral gathering, that public sin can and must be

01:09:18 – 01:09:26:	repudiated publicly. That's another part of Markwartz paper. And so when Gibbs talks about anger and

01:09:26 – 01:09:31:	wants to make it just an emotional thing, it's a trap that's really easy to fall into. And I see a

01:09:31 – 01:09:36:	lot of people who criticize Cory and I online say we're angry about something is though we're

01:09:36 – 01:09:42:	emotional about something. Yes, I do some kinds get emotional. I don't typically show it on Twitter.

01:09:42 – 01:09:46:	I mean, if I show just pleasure on Twitter, it's usually tactical. It's usually for effect.

01:09:47 – 01:09:54:	It's not that I've lost control and I'm just blustering. But because we live in a feminized world

01:09:54 – 01:10:03:	today, people look at the presence of emotion or something that could be described as emotion and say,

01:10:03 – 01:10:07:	aha, there's the content. Those are the facts that are relevant to what's going on here.

01:10:07 – 01:10:12:	When that's simply not the case, there's truth and there's falsity. And that, which is measured

01:10:12 – 01:10:18:	true, should be received by believers and will be hated by unbelievers. And the opposite of true

01:10:19 – 01:10:24:	is if something is false, if something is slanderous, it will be hated by Christians because it is

01:10:24 – 01:10:31:	contrary to what God says. And so is it emotional to say that I hate when there are pastors

01:10:31 – 01:10:38:	praying evil prayers? I don't think so. I'm not personally upset about it. I'm whatever emotional

01:10:38 – 01:10:43:	response I have to that is about the fact that our church has fallen so far that we have the sort

01:10:43 – 01:10:48:	of public evil going on and nothing is done about it. And it continues to be the case that the

01:10:48 – 01:10:55:	evil gets worse and the silence gets more deafening as time goes on. That upsets me. That's like

01:10:55 – 01:11:00:	stubbing my toe. That hurts a lot because I don't know if I'm ever going to stop stubbing my toe

01:11:00 – 01:11:05:	against this kind of wickedness. There doesn't seem to be anyone who's stepping forward to end it.

01:11:05 – 01:11:10:	So yeah, there's some emotion there, but it's still transient. There's not there's not something

01:11:10 – 01:11:15:	there that I think will that made me upset in there for I've stamped my book that someone made

01:11:15 – 01:11:22:	me mad on such and such a day and I'm never going to forget. I don't care. I do care. The hateful

01:11:22 – 01:11:31:	things to God are a threat to souls. The reason that Cory and I do this podcast is that these lies

01:11:31 – 01:11:37:	are a threat to souls. You know, we did the episode a couple weeks back where we talked about

01:11:37 – 01:11:47:	disputes and we mentioned the blow up over communion within Lutheranism. And I have seen numerous

01:11:47 – 01:11:53:	public and private reports since then of men who were considering becoming Lutheran or who had

01:11:53 – 01:12:00:	been Lutheran, who have already ceased to be Lutheran because of what Jordan Cooper said online.

01:12:01 – 01:12:06:	He said things that sounded reformed and people said, well, that sounds reformed. I was already

01:12:06 – 01:12:11:	reformed. I don't need this crap. Why would I be Lutheran? I already have this. There are things I

01:12:11 – 01:12:16:	like about reading being reformed that I don't like about being Lutheran. I can be exactly what I

01:12:16 – 01:12:22:	am over there. And Jordan Cooper gives me license to remain reformed because he says we believe the

01:12:22 – 01:12:27:	same things. Now Jordan will say that he didn't mean to do that, but that was the effect of his words.

01:12:28 – 01:12:37:	That makes me furious. That fills me with hatred. Not at the man so much as that the fact this

01:12:37 – 01:12:44:	unmitigated evil continues among us. And we can't get our act together to speak faithfully about

01:12:44 – 01:12:50:	the gifts that God has given us and people who are looking simply walk away. There will be thousands

01:12:50 – 01:12:55:	of people as a result of that blow up who will either leave the church, the Lutheran church,

01:12:55 – 01:13:00:	or the leave the church entirely and lose their faith. There are people who will go to hell

01:13:00 – 01:13:05:	because of what Jordan Cooper said. And not for the first time. This has been his pattern for years.

01:13:05 – 01:13:12:	That is a righteous object of perfect hatred. That is pure evil. And the fact that someone can do

01:13:12 – 01:13:18:	it with a collar and someone can do it while saying they're Lutheran and saying they're confessional

01:13:18 – 01:13:26:	doesn't change the facts. So as a Christian, I have to separate the emotion that these things

01:13:27 – 01:13:35:	cause from the righteous assessment as a juror of good and evil. We are told that we will judge

01:13:35 – 01:13:41:	angels. And there will be judgment that Christians will pass on creation. That is what God has

01:13:41 – 01:13:46:	assigned to us. And by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we're capable of it imperfectly

01:13:46 – 01:13:51:	today. I can tell whether or not something is good or evil, not perfectly, not an absolutely

01:13:51 – 01:13:57:	every case. But generally I can do a pretty darn good job because the Holy Spirit and scripture

01:13:57 – 01:14:05:	has equipped me and should equip every believer to do that. And when the world tells us love, love,

01:14:05 – 01:14:10:	you need to love. There needs to be more love. Use your end or voice. Don't get upset. You can't

01:14:10 – 01:14:16:	hate. You can't hate when something bad is happening. That is the voice of Satan because the more

01:14:16 – 01:14:21:	that these things happen and the more that they're received or covered up in the name of love,

01:14:22 – 01:14:28:	the further we get from what God commands of us. When Jesus commended that that wishy washy

01:14:28 – 01:14:33:	crappy church and revelation to and he said the only thing they had going for him was their hatred

01:14:33 – 01:14:38:	which he shares. He would not give us the same commendation. We have no hatred in our hearts today.

01:14:38 – 01:14:45:	We have no perfect hatred for anything except racism incidentally. If you're racist, if you do

01:14:45 – 01:14:51:	if you do a racism, that will inspire the full wrath of our churches today. There's virtually nothing

01:14:51 – 01:14:57:	else that will get anyone's dander up. That's a conversation for a near episode coming up soon.

01:14:58 – 01:15:04:	But think about that. You will see perfect hatred. Well, it's not perfect, but you will see hatred

01:15:04 – 01:15:11:	among our pastors and among the laity against certain things. And the things that they're

01:15:12 – 01:15:16:	attacking are things that are not even sins. They're things that are not scriptural. They're

01:15:16 – 01:15:21:	things that are not from God. And that is the only place that you'll see hatred. That's not a

01:15:21 – 01:15:27:	coincidence. It's not a coincidence that there is no hatred of false teaching. There's there's only

01:15:27 – 01:15:33:	hatred of the men who would say, Hey, I think this is false teaching. That's not a coincidence. That

01:15:34 – 01:15:39:	is achieving an end that is contrary to God's will. And that is something that is Christians. We

01:15:39 – 01:15:47:	must hate. I generally have the same response you do when it comes to the various pastors and

01:15:47 – 01:15:54:	detractors online a little more of the Germanic, fligmatic disposition. I personally just don't care.

01:15:54 – 01:16:00:	It doesn't, it listed an emotional response for me in any way, shape or form, except I would

01:16:00 – 01:16:06:	agree with you when it comes to the fact that this is actively harming other souls. Nothing

01:16:06 – 01:16:15:	these men say affects me in any way. So for my own sake, I don't care. There are others who are

01:16:15 – 01:16:22:	more annoyed by it on my behalf. And thank you for that. But in my case, there's not going to be

01:16:22 – 01:16:27:	an emotional response. So that accusation just falls entirely flat. It's nonsense. Of course,

01:16:27 – 01:16:33:	it's still a violation of the eighth commandment on their part. But I don't have personal enemies

01:16:33 – 01:16:38:	like that because it's silly and I don't see a point. The entire point of why we're doing this,

01:16:38 – 01:16:45:	the entire purpose is because there are men out there who are teaching falsely, who are harming

01:16:45 – 01:16:52:	souls, who are driving particularly young men out of the churches. They are actively harmful

01:16:52 – 01:17:00:	to Christ's church. And someone has to stand up and speak against them. And since we've brought

01:17:00 – 01:17:07:	up the issue of private versus public sin, I think this is a great time to read paragraph 284

01:17:07 – 01:17:11:	from the large catechism. It's part one dealing with the eighth commandment.

01:17:13 – 01:17:19:	All this has been said regarding secret sins, but where the sin is quite public so that the judge

01:17:19 – 01:17:25:	and everybody know it, you can without any sin avoid him and let him go because he has brought

01:17:25 – 01:17:32:	himself into disgrace. And you may also publicly testify concerning him. For when a matter is public

01:17:32 – 01:17:38:	in the light of day, there can be no slandering or false judging or testifying. As when we now

01:17:38 – 01:17:43:	approve the Pope with his doctrine, which is publicly set forth in books and proclaimed in all the

01:17:43 – 01:17:50:	world for where the sin is public, the reproof also must be public that everyone may learn to guard

01:17:50 – 01:17:58:	against it. And that is exactly what we are dealing with because nothing we have said on any

01:17:58 – 01:18:06:	episodes of our nothing we will say has dealt with private matters. These are false teachers and wolves

01:18:06 – 01:18:14:	masquerading his pastors who are spreading their filth online who are spreading it on social media

01:18:14 – 01:18:21:	who are spreading it on YouTube who are teaching people falsely who are driving people out of the

01:18:21 – 01:18:27:	church who are harming souls who are leading men straight into hell and all of it is public.

01:18:27 – 01:18:34:	And so the rebuke must be public. It is a matter of hatred. It is a matter of perfect hatred.

01:18:34 – 01:18:42:	It is a matter of not impassioned hatred, not emotional hatred, but a cold in the technical

01:18:42 – 01:18:48:	term, the technical sense of the term hatred. It is a hatred of the things that stand against God

01:18:49 – 01:18:56:	that cause harm to his sheep. It is a hatred of that which is evil and wicked, which is to say

01:18:56 – 01:19:02:	it is love for that which is good and right. It is a love for the sheep. It is a love for

01:19:02 – 01:19:07:	Christ church because when you act that of hatred for the evil, you are acting out of love for the

01:19:07 – 01:19:15:	good and vice versa. And it is important to reiterate that anything that a pastor, that an

01:19:15 – 01:19:25:	ordained minister of the word says, pastors don't get to have private theological opinions that

01:19:25 – 01:19:32:	is absolutely disqualified. By virtue of their office as a pastor, whatever a man who is called an

01:19:32 – 01:19:40:	ordained thinks about God's word is de facto public. Every thought in his head and certainly every

01:19:40 – 01:19:46:	word that he has ever said to anyone with regard to scripture, with regard to doctrine is a public

01:19:46 – 01:19:52:	matter because when a man with a collar speaks, it binds consciences. We have said on numerous

01:19:52 – 01:19:58:	episodes, this is just a podcast. We're here. We're teaching. You can pick it up. You can shut

01:19:58 – 01:20:04:	it down. We don't know your names. You're not accountable to us in any way. We're accountable to

01:20:04 – 01:20:09:	God for what we say, but we hold no authority over you. Anything that you hear us say that you

01:20:09 – 01:20:15:	might agree with, it's only because the Holy Spirit has convicted you of that because the arguments

01:20:15 – 01:20:21:	that we make are arguments from scripture. We do not exercise any authority on our own. This is

01:20:21 – 01:20:27:	not true of pastors. Any pastor, whether regardless of denomination, if he stands up and says,

01:20:27 – 01:20:34:	I'm a pastor, let me tell you what God says. He is speaking in the stead and by the command of God.

01:20:35 – 01:20:42:	Or he's speaking in the stead and contrary to the command of God. And these men who speak falsely

01:20:42 – 01:20:48:	are lucky that they are not struck dead. It is if they're blessed and they're going to convert and

01:20:48 – 01:20:53:	become Christians again, it will be a blessing that their lives continue from that day forward

01:20:53 – 01:20:59:	that they may return to the faith and be forgiven. If it were not the case that these men will not

01:20:59 – 01:21:06:	repent, that they will continue to take these high-handed sins, this slander in this evil that they

01:21:06 – 01:21:11:	feel there are their most proud moments. If they're going to take those to judgment day, it would be

01:21:11 – 01:21:16:	better for them when they're burning in hell if God were to strike them dead today. I know that

01:21:16 – 01:21:22:	sounds like a horrible thing to say, but strictly speaking, that is the most merciful thing that could

01:21:22 – 01:21:28:	happen. God will judge how that may happen. God determines the hour of each of our deaths. It's

01:21:28 – 01:21:33:	none of my business. Well, that is also just straight scriptural because Christ says of Judas,

01:21:33 – 01:21:40:	it would have been better for him had he not been born. Andy, that's not just something you infer

01:21:40 – 01:21:49:	from Scripture. That is a literal quote from Christ. Yeah. And so we spend more time than I wish

01:21:49 – 01:21:54:	that we would. I don't want this to be a podcast complaining about pastors, but the whole reason

01:21:54 – 01:22:00:	we're talking about perfect hatred is that there are very few pastors that are who are speaking

01:22:00 – 01:22:06:	about it correctly. There are great many pastors who accuse us of hatred, of evil hatred, of hatred

01:22:06 – 01:22:12:	that comes from Satan that say that we work for Satan by telling you these things that this

01:22:12 – 01:22:19:	podcast is from Satan and they're praying to their God to destroy us. That's between them and their

01:22:19 – 01:22:24:	maker. I'm not a part of that. If we're hated for saying what God says, I thank God for that

01:22:24 – 01:22:32:	martyrdom. It shames me to say that because I don't deserve martyrdom. If I were ever to be

01:22:32 – 01:22:38:	faced with being killed for being a Christian, I would beg them not for my life that they would

01:22:38 – 01:22:44:	kill me for something else because I do not deserve to stand in the courts of those who have died

01:22:44 – 01:22:51:	for the faith. However, it's not up to us. We say what God gives us to say and we say it to

01:22:51 – 01:22:56:	whoever will listen and the manner in which that is received is between each listener and the Holy

01:22:56 – 01:23:03:	Spirit. The reason for discussing all of these forgotten doctrines in things like hatred is because

01:23:03 – 01:23:09:	Satan is doing an end run around the entire church today. The things that we're discussing are

01:23:09 – 01:23:14:	the things that no one else is discussing. So it's frequently going to be upsetting to people

01:23:14 – 01:23:18:	or confusing to hear our episodes because we're talking about things you probably haven't heard

01:23:18 – 01:23:23:	before and that should rightly get your hackles up. It should make you nervous to hear somebody

01:23:23 – 01:23:31:	talking about theology in a way you've never heard. That's a huge red flag. The question is whether

01:23:31 – 01:23:36:	what we're saying is anything new. And the simple fact is that everything we're saying is ancient.

01:23:36 – 01:23:42:	This is not new theology or new doctrines that we just came up with because we were mad online.

01:23:42 – 01:23:46:	We look at scripture and we look at the history of the church and the history of believers

01:23:46 – 01:23:52:	and this is all we see until the last few centuries when all of these things came under attack.

01:23:52 – 01:23:59:	And each of these episodes is a different moving part of Satan's attack against the church and our

01:23:59 – 01:24:06:	efforts as individual men as laymen to try to rally whatever faithful men remain to look and to

01:24:06 – 01:24:13:	see clearly what it is that's going on in the church and in the world and to address it faithfully.

01:24:13 – 01:24:18:	And there will be days when addressing it faithfully requires that we hate with perfect hatred.

01:24:18 – 01:24:23:	And if we have not thought about what that means, how it works, what we can do and what we cannot

01:24:23 – 01:24:29:	do before that day, we will not be equipped to obey God on the day when our perfect hatred

01:24:29 – 01:24:34:	is required of us as obedience to God. Amen.