What the God of Love Hates

Transcript

JR 14
03/05/2023
What the God of Love Hates
Proverbs 6:16-19
Jesse Randolph

“Where love is, God is,” Henry Drummond. “God’s love is like an ocean, you can see its beginning, but not its end,” Rick Warren. “God loves you. He wants you to succeed. He wants the best for you,” Norman Vincent Peale. “God’s love is too great to live ordinary,” Christine Caine. By the way, don’t take notes in this section of the sermon. “God loves you enough . . . loves all of us enough to say you get to run your life the way you choose,” Mike Connell. “God carries your picture in His wallet,” Tony Campolo

Well, at the risk of over-stating the obvious, it is safe to say that the modern day church and modern day self-identified Christians, love to love a God who is all about love. It’s easy to love a God who is one dimensional and monochromatic and flat. It’s easy to love a God who is like a benevolent, toothless, old grandfather, who has no problem with us violating his house rules, and who looks the other way when we openly disobey and disregard him. It’s easy to love a God who loves everything about us, not necessarily through the lens of the cross of Jesus Christ, but because of what we perceive to be our inherent loveliness.

Now, is God love? Absolutely. 1 John 4:16 says, “God is love.” Does God love? Certainly. Love is inherent in His person, in His nature, in His character. There was love within the Trinity, between Father, Son and Spirit, going back to eternity past. That’s what Jesus said in John 17:24, “You loved Me,” He says to the Father, “before the foundation of the world.” Has God communicated His love toward us? Without question. He showed us His love by withholding judgment from us when we were living in opposition to and rebellion to Him. He showed us His love in providing us with life and breath and movement and being. He shows us His love in allowing us to enjoy at cold drink of water on a hot day and a warm cup of coffee on a cold day. He shows us His love by allowing us to enjoy relationships and friendships and fellowship. And of course, His supreme act of love toward us was shown in His Son. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Does God expect us to reflect His love outwardly to others? You bet He does. John 13:34 says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” 1 John 4:7 says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”

Are there things which God loves which He wants us to love? For sure. To name just a few, God loves
those who act justly, that’s Psalm 37:28, “For the Lord loves justice.” God loves those who pursue righteousness, Proverbs 15:9 says, “The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but He loves one who pursues righteousness.” God loves those who fear Him, Psalm 103:11 says, “great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.”
And He loves those who love His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. John 16:27, Jesus says, “For the Father Himself loves you,” He’s speaking to His disciples, “because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father.”

No doubt God is love. And God does love. And God is a God of love. But that doesn’t give us the entire picture, does it? The description of God doesn’t end there, does it? It’s not as though God is love and only love, is He? No, the scriptures paint a much different and much more multi-faceted, multi-dimensional picture.

Turn with me in your bibles, if you would, to Proverbs 6. We’re taking a week off of our study in the book of James to reflect on what God’s word has to say about things that are displeasing to Him, things which are an offense to Him, things which, in fact, He hates. And we’re going to take this little detour into this section of Proverbs this morning, as we prepare to, at the end of service, partake of the elements of Communion. And to remember the great love that this God, this God who hates, has shown us through the sacrificial and atoning death of His Son. We’ll be in Proverbs 6.

Now, Song of Solomon portrays young Solomon in his earlier years in the context of his expression of marital love. Ecclesiastes is old, reflective Solomon as he comes to the sage conclusion that the true purpose and meaning that’s found in life is by fearing God and keeping His commandments. But in Proverbs we have middle-aged Solomon providing counsel to his son, Rehoboam, as he’s laying out various life lessons about what it means to live a life of integrity. And as we turn to Proverbs 6, specifically in verses 1-5, we have Solomon charging his son to be a man of his word. Verse 2, “if you’ve been snared with the words of your mouth,” not to be such a one that’s snared with the words of your mouth. In verses 6-11, he’s instructing his son on the importance of being a man who works, verse 6, “Go to the ant, O sluggard, observe her ways and be wise.” In verses 12-15, he warns his son against becoming that worthless, wicked person. The one who “winks,” and “signals,” and “points”, as verse 13 says. The one who, as verse 14 says, “with perversity in his heart continually devises evil, [and] who spreads strife.” In verses 20-23, he concludes by giving instruction to his son in persevering in following his parent’s example. Verse 20, “My son, observe the commandment of your father and do not forsake the teaching of your mother.”

And then sandwiched between all those verses we have verses 16-19, which is our text for this morning. Take a look at Proverbs 6:16-19. We’ll read it together. God’s word reads, “There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven, which are an abomination to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers.” And there it is. Yes, God is love and God does love. But God also hates. And both of those truths need to be understood and both of those truths need to be embraced.

She’s going to hate me for doing this, but when my wife and I first got married I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what she liked. Things like frozen yogurt and reading on the couch in the afternoon (this is before kids) and furry dogs. I had a good grasp on the things she liked. But it took me a lot longer to grasp the things, and to get the message about the things, she didn’t like. Like being called out in public. But no, she really had this disdain for being surprised. My wife does not like being surprised. And here am I, trying to make these impromptu, unilateral plans to surprise her, and sweep her off her feet, and all that. But, I didn’t get that that’s not what made here tick. She didn’t appreciate it. She doesn’t thrive in uncertainty, is the way that I would say it. And for all these early years of marriage, it just wasn’t clicking for me. So I was continually trying to drop the big surprise on her, completely oblivious to her and her preferences and her dislikes. And in a way I was not only disappointing her, but I was dishonoring her.

Now, on an infinitely greater and far more transcendent scale, so can we be with the Lord. We can leave our thoughts and reflections about God parked in the category of what He loves, while neglecting to understand what He hates, what He disdains. But as our text for this morning reveals, there are undoubtedly things that are our holy Creator, our Upholder, our Sustainer, the One that’s giving you and me breath right now, there are things that He hates. And if we want to live faithfully as people of the Book, as people of conviction, we need to understand what those things are so that we can identify them, so we can turn aside from them, so we can expose them when we’ve stumbled into them and then we can repent of them.

The title of the message this morning is “What the God of Love Hates.” And we have seven sermon points this morning. Not three, not alliterated, but the seven points are simply going to track with the seven things the Lord identifies in our verses for this morning. So we’ll take it from the top in verse 16,
He says, “There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him.”
Now, we read this right away in the English and the first question we might have is, is God confused here? Is there a typo in scripture? Is it six things the Lord hates or is it seven? And if it’s seven things the Lord hates, why didn’t He say seven? And why did He inject the word “six”? Well, we have to remember that Solomon here, is writing in ancient biblical Hebrew and how he’s constructed this sentence. “There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him” is a recognized Hebraic way of highlighting what’s being said, showing the importance of what’s being said, putting an accent, a spotlight, on what’s being said. Remember, Solomon lived in a world that didn’t have word processors and yellow highlighters and Grammarly. So there were these unique devices in Hebrew that these Hebrew authors would use to stress and emphasize what they were communicating. The point being that here in this text Solomon is identifying and highlighting seven, not six, things the Lord hates.

But note that these aren’t the only things that the Lord hates. This is not a comprehensive or exhaustive list. It’s not as though God here is saying, “This is what I hate, and nothing else. Everything else that happens in the world, or in your life, I’m cool with.” No, this list is representative, it shows the range of God’s disposition toward particular types of sins.

Now, before we go any further, and again at the risk of stating the obvious, it’s important to say here that the hatred that we experience toward things or people or events or circumstances is night and day different than the hatred that’s described here. Our hatred is characterized by sin. We covered that a couple of weeks ago in James 3 when we encountered that form of worldly wisdom which is “earthly, natural, demonic,” which leads to “bitter jealousy,” and “selfish ambition,” and “disorder,” and “every evil thing,” [James 3:15-16] We’re going to develop that truth further, by the way, next Sunday morning when we get to James 4:1, where he says, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?” The hatred we experience is birthed in and bathed in sin.

But God who is perfect, obviously does not sin. So, when we encounter this list of the things God hates, it certainly is not involving Him or implicating Him in any sort of sin. Rather, the meaning of that word “hates”, is literally to be set against. Meaning God has taken a position on all the things that He’s about to list out here and He’s set against each and every one of them. Now, the text doesn’t end with that word “hates” though, does it? He continues on. In verse 16, He also mentions by way of underscoring that these seven sins that He’s about to list out here are an “abomination” to God. Now, that’s a big deal. An abomination is something that’s loathsome; a synonym would be abhorrent, repugnant, something that is detestable in the eyes of the Lord. Throughout the Proverbs we see several things that the Lord hates, which He also calls, like here, an abomination. That would include dishonest scales, Proverbs 11:1; lying lips, Proverbs 12:22; the sacrifice of the wicked, Proverbs 15:8-9; evil thoughts, Proverbs 15:26; the arrogant, Proverbs 16:5; false judges, Proverbs 17:15; scoffers, Proverbs 24:9
And each of those verses the Lord calls those particular sins “abominable.” He also calls other sins “abominable” in other parts of scripture as well. We’ll just keep it to the Old Testament for now, given the context here. He calls idolatry an abomination, 1 Kings 21:26; homosexuality, Leviticus 18:22; human sacrifice, Deuteronomy 12:31; dabbling in the occult, Deuteronomy 18:9.


It’s important to note that while God hates many things, the things that He hates are always associated with sin. These things that God hates are not in the category or the realm of preference. He doesn’t hate those who prefer salty snacks over savory treats. He doesn’t hate those who prefer warm weather over cold weather. He doesn’t hate those who use an Android instead of an iPhone. Those are all matters of preference. No, He hates those and those sins that involve violations of His specific commands and specific prohibitions that He has given. He hates violations of His word. He hates sin. And yes, He hates those individuals who continually shake their fists at Him in their sin. That’s Psalm 5:5, “You hate all,” it say, “who do iniquity.”

With that, let’s get to our text again and explore. We haven’t even gotten to the list yet, these seven things that the Lord hates. First, verse 17, he lists “haughty eyes.” So, heading one, “God Hates Haughty Eyes.” Now, the Hebrew word here in verse 17 for haughty eyes literally means eyes that are high. And not high like they are looking on high toward God. Rather, eyes that are positioned high and that they look down on everyone else. What is Solomon describing here? Pride. That’s the idea here, God hates pride, the prideful man, The man with haughty eyes is that man who has his nose in the air, who continually looks down on others from the elevated throne on which he has placed himself, in his own sin-sick heart.

Now, here’s the tricky thing, pride isn’t always easy to detect, is it? No, we know that pride is the most subtle and deceitful and disguised of sins. Pride doesn’t always reveal itself in a puffed-out chest or a boastful spirit or a cantankerous personality. No, it’s not always draped in a rainbow flag as it’s paraded down the streets each and every June. No, pride is far more sinister, far more subtle, far more difficult to detect and to root out. Pride is not just, by the way, celebrated and tolerated in the month of June in our day and age. It’s really become sort of a virtue all year round in the culture. But we know from God’s word that pride rears its ugly head in all sorts of ways.
Pride can show itself in a lack of gratitude, prayerlessness, anger, perfectionism, people pleasing, talking too much, being unable to receive criticism, being sarcastic, being defensive, being impatient, showing a lack of service toward others, showing a lack of compassion toward others, being overly independent, being overly controlling. Any one of those and many more can be a manifestation of a prideful heart.

Now, hear me, whichever way pride is manifesting itself in your heart and in your life right now, you need to know, on the authority of God’s word here, that God hates it. God hates pride. Psalm 101:5 says, that God will not endure the man “who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart.” Isaiah 42:8 says, He will not share His glory with another. And what is pride but robbing from God the glory that is due Him and Him alone. Now, if you’re feeling the screws turned on you a little bit, don’t worry, we have six more of these to work through. But again, we need to think through and prayerfully evaluate, maybe how we are still being steered by a sinful, prideful heart. The subject of pride deserves its own sermon, so we need to move on.

The second thing that’s identified here is, a lying tongue, “God Hates a Lying Tongue.” Now, if we were to turn to Proverbs 12:22, we’d see that “lying lips are an abomination to the Lord.” And there’s that word again, abomination! That’s saying that lying is literally one of the worst things a person can do. Ananias and Sapphira were struck down for lying to the Holy Spirit in Acts 5 [verses 4-5, 9-10]. In Revelation 21:8, we see that liars are on that list of people whose “part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.” Lying is no small thing in the mind of God. God cannot and will not tolerate lying or deception of any kind. And that makes total sense, because God is the source of all truth, God is truth, God defines truth, God speaks truth, God reveals truth. And God is the “God, who cannot (and will not) lie,” Titus 1:2. Everything about Him is true, and nothing about Him is false. This is trinitarian. God the Father is the one and “only true God,” John 17:3. Jesus, God the Son is “the way, and the truth, and the life,” John 14:6. The Holy Spirit “is the Spirit of truth,” John 14:17.

And by the way, this is one of God’s communicable attributes - truth. Meaning it’s an attribute that He shares with us as His image-bearers. And truth and honesty are to be reproduced in the lives of all of us, as followers of Christ. We’re to be truth-bearers, and truth-proclaimers, and truth-tellers.

So, if God’s character is to be true, and truth, and it is, and God calls us to be truth-tellers, which He does, why do we lie? Why do Christians lie? Well, one reason I’ll submit to you, is that we lie because there are aspect of our life for we haven’t completely disconnected to the father of lies, the Devil, Satan. Though as Martin Luther once put it he is already “a defeated devil” in light of what Christ has accomplished on the cross, there is still some part of our heart in which he has a little foothold and is comfortable, at home there, which provokes us to lie.
We live in a world, Romans 1:25, in which the entire human race has “exchanged the truth” they know about God “for a lie.” And in that world, with enough of a foothold into our heart, Satan can get us to embrace what we know to be false. We start thinking things like: “Well, maybe church attendance is optional for the Christian.” “Maybe the planet, like all the scientists say, is 14 billion give-or-take years old.” “Maybe same-sex attraction isn’t all that bad, so long as that same-sex attraction isn’t acted upon.” And while it’s true that Satan plays his part in doing the tempting, we ultimately can’t lay blame at his feet. Because we’re the ones who do the acting, we’re the ones who speak, we’re the ones who lie, and we’re the ones who are responsible and accountable for the lies we tell.

So, let’s get honest about being honest for a second. For the married men in the room, does your wife know where your eyes go, where your hands go, where your mind goes, where your heart goes, when she’s not around? For the married women in the room, does you husband know that the Target bill was actually $100, not the $50 that you represented to him? For those of you who are in the working world, are you being honest in your relationships and your dealings and your transactions in every way? Do your timesheets tell the story of the work you actually did? Does your resume actually reflect who you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve done, and what you’re qualified to do? How about for those of you who are students, you know, for those of you who I know these days its all online, right? So, have you ever clicked the “I completed the reading assignment” button, when maybe you didn’t? Have you let the lecture just play all day long, or all night long, and then click later that you watched the lecture, when in fact, you didn’t? Have you told your teachers you were sick, and couldn’t get out of bed, when in reality you just needed to binge some Netflix that morning? For those of you who are more active in ministry, have you ever misrepresented facts about someone that you felt threatened by, who is getting in your way to get to where you want to go? Have you ever sought to advance yourself into a role that you were never qualified for, but yet because you fudged the facts you got it anyway? Have you ever preached someone else’s sermon?

God hates it all. God hates, Proverbs 6:17, a “lying tongue.” And He hates the posture of the heart behind the lying tongue, because, after all, we know from our Lord, in Luke 6:45, it’s out of the heart that the mouth speaks. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. They are damnable, and worthy of hell. So, if you’re sitting here this morning, and you’re feeling a little bit stung, and a little bit rebuked, there are three things you need to do. First, you need to confess your sin. 1 John 1:8-9 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. (But) if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Second, you need to repent of that sin. Proverbs 4:24 says, “Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you.” Third, you need to pray that God would shape you to be a person of truth and honesty. Psalm 120:2 says, “Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.”

Here’s the third thing God hates, God hates, at the end of verse 17, “hands that shed innocent blood.”
That’s speaking of murder. God hates murder. Whether it’s a drive-by shooting, or death by an abortionist’s needle, God hates murder. He hates hands that shed innocent blood. And the inclusion of that word “innocent” makes it clear that He’s referring to intentional murder here. Not something accidental, you know, second and third degree manslaughter. And not something retributive or punitive, like capital punishment. This is referring to the command “Thou shalt not murder.” God hates physical acts of murder. That’s self-evident, that’s obvious, not much more need to be said.

But we also know, do we not, that murder goes beyond the physical realm. We know that murder cannot be reduced to the firing of a gun or the plunging of a knife or the evacuation of a womb. No, murder takes place long before that, in the heart, on that battlefield of the passions that war within. That’s where we’re going to cover actually next week in James 4. You can flip there with me real quick, if you’d like, to James 4 for a bit of a preview of where we’ll get next week, and how this illustrates what’s being said in Proverbs 6. Look at James 4:1-2. He says, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.”

See, the wicked human heart is the place where all those feelings, physical feelings, those murderous thoughts of anger that we’ve all experienced, where it comes from. And you know what I’m talking about, right? Those feelings: the lump in the throat, the tears welling up in the eyes, and the muscles in our bodies physically clenching, the sweat beading on our brow, the chill running down our spine, our heart thumping through our chest. The thoughts though not outwardly verbalized, that ‘I could just kill that person.’ They’re all murderous.
Recall what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5:21. He says, “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court,’ ” and then what does He say? “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court.” He who is angry is guilty, guilty of murder. And the verdict Jesus gives in Matthew 5:22 makes that person “guilty enough,” it says, “to go into the fiery hell.” In other words, the axe murderer and the sinfully angry person are cut from the same cloth.

Are you angry with someone here this morning, as you sit here? Are you angry with someone in your family? Someone in leadership in the Church? Someone who maybe left the church? Are you harboring a grudge? Hanging onto bitterness? Withholding forgiveness? The hatred you’re showing that other person is something God says here in verse 17 of Proverbs 6 that He hates. So, maybe you need to make that phone call. Maybe you need to send that email. Maybe you need to track that person down. Maybe you need to get it squared up with God first, and then with your brother and sister. Maybe you need to search and examine your own heart and confess your own sin and seek forgiveness for your part. And then forgive, Ephesians 4:32, “just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

Well, as we keep marching on we pick up the fourth thing God hates in verse 18 where he says “He [God} Hates a Heart That Devises Wicked Plans.” The connection between the human heart and human wickedness, and the wickedness that resides within the human heart, is all throughout scripture. Genesis 6:5 says, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Jeremiah 17:9, familiar verse, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Romans 1:21 in the New Testament, Paul there, speaking of the depravity of man, and says, that “their foolish heart was darkened.” What Proverbs 6 is teaching usthat is that God hates the heart that capitalizes on its own inherent wickedness, by concocting evil strategies, by developing deceitful schemes, by formulating plans to engage in sin. What’s being described here is the person who is always up to something. They’re always up to something. They are unworthy of trust. They’re always hatching that plot, whether to be steal, or to lie, or to manipulate people, or to use people.

I experienced a real world form of this not too long ago. It was probably six months ago or so I got a Facebook message from somebody who I had been friends with two decades ago. And I recognized their face and their profile. And I got this message from them in Messenger. And it said, “Hi! How have you been?” And I was like, aw, that’s sweet, rekindling an old friendship. This is great. So, I spent, I don’t know, thirty minutes typing out a little autobiographical sketch of what the last twenty years have been like for me. That was a mistake! Because at the end of it I wrote, “And how about you?” And I expected this long update from them, you know, rekindling the friendship. All they wrote back were three words, “About the same.” I was a little hurt. But also, the red flag went up, because I’m like I’m not sure this is actually my friend from thirty years ago. This could be somebody in India or somewhere else around the world, who’s hijacked their account and pretending to be them. Well, we went back and forth a little bit. They asked me to start investing in their business which turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. I didn’t invest in the business, I declined their invitation, I shared the gospel with them, I wished them well. They didn’t reply.

But the point is that was a “heart that (was devising) wicked plans” whoever that person was. It’s an example, sadly of somebody who is scheming and strategizing wickedness. And that can run the whole range, right? The “heart that devises wicked plans” is what’s behind the sex trafficking ring. It’s what’s behind a drug dealer’s business plan. It’s what’s behind a crooked politician’s fundraising strategy. But it’s not as though the only place that wicked hearts like these can be found are in smoke-filled bars and darks alleys. You can just as much spot the “heart that devises wicked plans” in a family where jealousy is running rampant. Or in a marriage where infidelity and divorce are now on the table. Or in a church where self-interested people only come on Sundays to hobnob and do some business development.

Now, don’t think for a second, that maintaining external appearances of ‘having it all together,’ is going to deceive an all-knowing and all-wise God. What does 1 Samuel 16:7 say, in the context of David being identified and anointed as king? It says, “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks,” where, “on the heart.” Or Jesus, Matthew 15:19-20 says, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man.” We simply cannot be those double-dealing, double-minded, deceptive people whose hearts devise wicked plans. No, God hates, it says, such a heart.
Instead, as people of God, we’re called to do what Proverbs 4:23 says, which is to “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.”

Number five on the list of the things that God hates, is given in the second half of verse 18, “Feet that run rapidly to evil.” God hates eager involvement in the sins of others. God hates feet that run rapidly to see, participate in, encourage, enjoy, evil. In fact, flip over with me, to Proverbs 1. Just a few pages back, where we’re going to see an example of this.
Proverbs 1, and we’ll pick it up in verse 10, he says, “My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, ‘Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause; Let us swallow them alive like Sheol, even whole, as those who go down to the pit; we will find all kinds of precious wealth, we will fill our houses with spoil; throw in your lot with us, we shall all have one purse,’ ” note what he says in verses 15-16, he says, “My son, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your feet from their path, for their feet run to evil and they hasten to shed blood.” Paul picks up on a similar idea at the end of Romans 1 [verse 32], where he’s laying out the wrath of God falling on the wickedness of the day. But that wrath of God is also hanging over the heads, who not only engage in that wickedness, but who give hearty approval to those who participate in it.

Now, lest we think that this concept of feet running rapidly to evil is just some Old Testament thing that happened back then, but doesn’t happen today, well, the record of history and our own experience would showcase that this temptation has been passed down from one generation to another. Many months ago, I was watching this biography of the martyr, Perpetua, with two of my boys. And Perpetua was this female martyr. She was killed in the year 203 A.D. torn by lions for her allegiance to Christ. And we’re watching this, you know, cartoon version of those accounts, and the boys were noticeably rocked by what was happening. But not even so much the lions that were doing the tearing, but the people that were watching the lions doing the tearing of Perpetua. And I remember one of them asking the question, ‘Why would people want to do that, Dad? Why would they want to sit and watch that? Well, I had the answer for them, right here in Proverbs 6, they have “feet that run rapidly to evil.”

Or you guys might remember fights in high school, right? (Did those only happen in California? Do you guys have fights in high school in Nebraska?) What would happen when a high school fight would break out in the quad or in the hallway or the front lawn in front of the school? Would people run away from the fight? No. You run toward the fight to see who’s going to get it. Again, feet running rapidly to evil.
And it’s not just our feet that take us to evil, is it? In our day, its our finger running across the trackpad, or scrolling on the iPad, or scrolling on the phone, to access that site we shouldn’t be on. Or to watch men beat each other’s brains in. Or, today now, its even women beating each other’s brains in. Or to watch, over and over to satiate our morbid curiosity, videos of all kinds of violence that happens all over the world. It’s as though when we access those things or look at those things, we’re saying, “Well, I’m not engaging in the sinful act itself so that should be fine. I’m just being entertained by the sin that I’m watching.” But its not fine. And that’s not ok. Because God’s word clearly says, He hates feet, or fingers, or eyes that run rapidly to evil.
Now, the sixth thing he mentions, is verse 19, the “false witness who utters lies. Now, what we have in view here is a courtroom scene. Envision the Judge sitting on the bench and the parties being on opposite sides of the courtroom and the witness being on the stand. And with no regard for the truth or the well-being of others, the witness, it says here, “utters lies.” Now, the Hebrew term here for “utters lies” actually means to “breathe lies.” And the implication here, is that this is somebody who can hardly talk without lying. This isn’t somebody who occasionally trips or fumbles through truth and lies alternating. This is an intentional slanderer. A purposeful perjurer. Who is seeking to endanger the life and the limbs and the liberty of other people through the lies that tumble off their tongues. This is somebody who is “bear[ing] false witness,” [Exodus 20:16]. They don’t care that they are spreading iniquity. They don’t mind being marked by deceit. They have no moral compass. They have no concept of the perversion of justice that their lies will cause. So what if an innocent person is condemned? So what if the guilty person goes free? This person is hell bent on saying whatever it is they’re going to say no matter the wreckage it might cause in the life of another. Proverbs 25:18 describes such a person, this false witness, as being “a club and a sword and a sharp arrow.” Which is fitting for the devastation and the ruin their words cause when they hit their target.

Now, admittedly this is a very specific, narrow example, this courtroom scene involving this false witness. And maybe many of you won’t have that opportunity to testify in court, or commit actual perjury. Hope not. But again, this proverb is teaching not so much what you would say in hypothetical settings as it is evaluating your heart right now. And it’s evaluating your heart as its orientated toward others who are offending you, where your heart is not right toward them, or they’ve grieved you, or they’ve caused you some harm. And the question that you need to ask, in light of this passage is, do you have enough residual anger, hatred, unforgiveness, in your heart toward a person, that if you were given an opportunity to testify in court against them, that you’d be tempted to say something untruthful about them? So that perhaps the way you’re justifying it is they would finally get what they deserved? Remember, it’s out of the abundance of our hearts, Luke 6:45, that the mouth speaks.

And with that, we get to the seventh thing the Lord hates at the end of verse 19, the “one who spreads strife among brothers.” “God Hates the One Who Spreads Strife Among Brothers.” And this is the crescendo, this is the conclusion, God hates the “one who spreads strife among brothers.” Another way of saying it is that God hates the “one who unleashes conflicts between brothers.” We know going back to the Old Testament that God has always wanted brothers, Psalm 133:1, to dwell in unity. And preserving and pursuing unity becomes even more important when we’re talking abut spiritual brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters who may not share a last name, but who do share a common faith. Spiritual brothers and sisters are called to love one another, because that demonstrates, John 13 [verse 35], that we are true disciples of Jesus. Spiritual brothers and sisters are called to regard others as more important than themselves, and look out for the interest of others. Philippians 2 [verse 2-4]. Spiritual brothers and sisters are called to be diligent to pursue the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, Ephesians 3:6.

God loves unity, especially in His church today. Which is why He hates the one, as it says here, who spreads strife and causes rifts in relationships, and causes fractures in the fellowship, and who divides, and ultimately disunifies. A divisive spirit is one who creates division where there should be unity. This is the person, the divisive spirit, who pits members of the same body against each other, through under-handed comments, and through over-shared prayer requests, and through sarcasm, and through snark. The person that is creating division as opposed to unity, that’s the person who pits their local pastors and elders against the bottomless sea of Twitter theologians and YouTube preachers. “Boy, that James White is something.” “Boy, that Paul Washer is spitting fire again.” “You know, I know I attend this church or that church, but John MacArthur is really my pastor.” That’s disunifying. This is the person who thinks that their spiritual gift is a specific type of discernment, where their job is to critique and challenge the leaders of the church, rather than humbly and joyfully submitting to their spiritual leadership. After all, they’ve listened to enough podcasts, they’ve read enough blog articles, that they practically already have a Master of Theology degree so they know better. This is the person who through their gossiping and slandering tongue, Proverbs 17:9, “separates close [intimate] friends.” Bringing it to the modern day church context, this is the person who “spreads strife among brothers,” and in doing so they blemish the beauty of this pure bride of Christ.

How important is unity to you? In your family? In the church? In other spheres of influence you have? How often have you jumped into the dogpile of slanderous words that are being said about a brother or sister in the Lord? How many times have you looked the other way when strife is being spread in the church? How many times have you cast your brothers and sisters in-the-Lord, your spiritual leaders, or even those who are under your spiritual care, in a negative light, with no thought to the damage it would cause them, and the damage it would cause the unity of the church? I’m not being rhetorical here, by the way, I’m hoping that you all, we all, will really reflect on these questions, and think on these things, and make sure that we are not that divisive or factious, ungodly person.

Well, what we’ve seen this morning in Proverbs 6 is this list of these seven things that the Lord hates. And they really are a true anatomy of evil. It’s an anatomy of evil in that it impacts every part of our physical body. Look at the body parts we’ve looked through in just these four verses. Evil affects our eyes and our tongues. This kind of evil affects our hands and our feet. And this type of evil affects, and it has its root, in the heart which is the control center of all that we do. And what this proverb is doing then is its highlighting, its emphasizing, the total depravity of man. The Lord hates abominations and man is full of them.

So, where are we? Where are you? Are your eyes haughty or are they humble? Is your tongue deceitful or is it truthful? Does your heart plan evil or does it plan good? Do your feet rush to evil or do they rush to do good? Do you breathe out lies or breathe out truths to others? Do you sow discord or sow peace around others? What do you hate more, the fact that the national debt is spiraling and spiraling out of control or the lies that continue to slop across your tongue? What do you hate more, the fact that your neighbor refuses to shovel their part of the sidewalk near your house or the anger that you’re still harboring in your heart toward someone in this church from twenty-five years ago? I’m not asking if you’re capable of being hateful. We’re all capable of being hateful. I’m asking if you hate the things that oppose God, these things. Do you hate what God hates?

Now, I know that sermons like these based on texts like these can leave us licking our wounds a little bit, feeling a little battered, a little bruised. Which is why I want to wind down the sermon here by remembering that these seven things that God hates are sins that Jesus died for. So, we’ve been confronted with these seven things that the Lord hates. As we’re confronted we need to thank Almighty God that He sent His Son to save us. To save us not from this list but to save us from our sin and to save us from the penalty for sin. And ultimately, to save us from the God that we’ve sinned against. And so, as we think of where we still fall short, we need to continually run back to that God, the God who hates all these things that are on this list, but at the same time loves us who have trusted in Christ. And we need to seek forgiveness for partaking in the acts and the attitudes which He hates. And instead, resolve, by the power of Christ and His indwelling Spirit, to put on the things the Lord loves while putting off the things the Lord hates. In the end, it’s the grace of Jesus Christ that we need most to move from haughty to humble, from deceitful to truthful, from hurtful to helpful, from evil to good. Thank the Lord for His grace.

Our Great God, we again say thank You. Thank You for sending Your Son into the world. Thank You for the wisdom of the cross which surely is folly to the world, but was Your way of accomplishing Your perfect plans to redeem us, to save us, so that we might have restored relationship with You, and fellowship with You, and to be able to spend eternity with You. God, thank You for the shed blood of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. May we never lose sight of or forget that we are fundamentally a blood-bought people. That our salvation costs something. That our salvation in turn, ought to spur us on to lives that are upright and holy and godly. Not put on, not for show, not doing it out of routine or habit, but out of a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. God, thank You for these opportunities to come together like this and reflect and remember the death of our Lord. And what it secured and the hope it bought and the salvation we now have. Thank You that You are a good Father, a kind Father, a merciful and loving Father, and an all-wise Father. May we leave this place encouraged and motivated to serve the One who died for us all the more faithfully. It’s in His name we pray. Amen.