Sermon Tone Analysis

Is Hatred Always Wrong According to Bible Teaching?

"A Time to Love and a Time to Hate"

📷Surely hatred is often bad, but is it always wrong or evil?

What should we not hate?

Is it ever acceptable to hate?

When people teach that others are wrong because they participate in some practice, does that mean they are guilty of improper hatred?

Should they be accused of hate speech or hate crimes, and should laws be passed to punish them?

When the Bible is taught and people reject the teaching, who is really guilty of improper hatred?How many times have you heard people say things like the following?"Hate

has no place in our society.""We

need to learn to love, not hate."When

people speak out against some practice, they are accused of being full of hate or using hate speech or a hate crime.People often act and speak as though love is always good and hate always bad.Hatred is a failure to love.4 - No man can serve two masters; either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.

Hatred is not just the opposite of love, but a lack of love, the absence of love.Love is a devotion or attachment that leads us to have a favorable view of someone or something such that we desire to promote it, benefit it, or seek its well being.Hatred is generally hostility, animosity, or antagonism that leads us to have an unfavorable view of someone or something such that we desire it to be harmed, destroyed, or defeated.But in the Bible hatred sometimes refers to loving one thing less than another.

You don't have to actively oppose a thing to hate it.

So long as you don't actively pursue its good or don't love it as much as you love something else, then you hate it8 says there is "a time to love and a time to hate."

The purpose of this study is to learn which is which.Surely hatred is often bad, but is it always bad? Just because someone tells people they are wrong, does that mean they are guilty of improper hatred?

When we tell people what the Bible says and they reject the teaching, who is really guilty of improper hatred?

Consider:I.

Things We Should Not HateA.

God and JesusWe might think that no one would hate God, but there are several ways people are guilty.Some people actively resent God and His authority0 - Those who are worthy of death include "haters of God."

The context discusses people who ought to believe, but reject the knowledge of God and so end up in false worship and immorality of all kinds.

These people may worship idols, etc. (vv 23,24).

What they hate is the God of the Bible, who places restrictions on them.7 - Jesus said the world hated Him, because He testified that its works were evil.

Again, they hated Him because He made demands on their lives.

Some professed to believe He was not from God, saying He was a sinner, He did miracles by the power of Satan,etc.

But the root problem was that He proved they were in sin, and they did not want to change.In that sense we are surrounded by haters of God: people who refuse to have God in their knowledge and resent any effort to remind them of God.85;3]Some people are indifferent to God or love something else more than God4 - People cannot have two masters.

They love one and hate the other.

You cannot serve God and mammon (riches).

These people may not actively resent God, but their lives are controlled by material interests instead of God.

This is hatred, because it is a lack of love for God.This shows that everyone hates something.

It is impossible to love everything, and God does not expect us to love everything.

When two things that are antagonistic, the more you love one, the more you hate the other.7 - If you love God, then you must not love the world.

If you love the world, then the love of the Father is not in you.

God views that as hating Him.Some people show they hate God by disobeying Him2 - One who is perverse in his ways despises the Lord (maybe not intentionally)54 - If we love God, we keep His commands.

But he who does not love Jesus does not keep His words.

So to disobey is to lack love - God says we hate Him.When people claim that others are guilty of hatred, simply because they warn people they are guilty of sin, those people need to consider who really is guilty of hatred.

In God's view, the person who sins is guilty of hatred, not the person who rebukes the sinner9 - The greatest command of all is to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind.

There are some things we should hate, but we must make sure we never hate God, either deliberately, by neglect, or by disobedience.2;4;1;5;0;1;0;90;1;5;7;7]B.

Truth and God's WordAgain, we might think no one would ever hate truth or hate God's word.

But there are many ways people are guilty, including the following:Some people actively resent the restrictions or requirements of truth04 - Some people call evil good, and good evil.

They reject the law of God and despise His word.

This goes hand in hand with the people who openly hate God.

They love to practice things that God says are evil, so they not only don't want to hear the truth, but the openly resent it.8

- Ahab said he hated the prophet Micaiah, because he always prophesied evil concerning him.

Ahab was the most wicked king of Israel up to that time.

He married Jezebel, worshiped idols, allowed Jezebel to have a man killed so Ahab could take his vineyard, and followed evil of all kinds.

When a true prophet told him the truth, he hated it.

The problem is that people want to live to please themselves.

They do not want to be restricted.

An online student once said (in effect): "Don't tell us what to believe.

Don't tell us what we have to do."

But the whole purpose of the Bible is to tell us what to believe and what to do!Society is filled with people who argue against truth and defend other views, even when shown what the Bible says.

So they choose other religions, other religious authorities, or no authority at all except their own desires.

What God says is simply not what they want to believe, so they openly hate it.

Some people resent being rebuked by God's word1 - People who love truth will come to God's word so it can reveal truth.

But some people hate the light and refuse to come to it, because they don't want their deeds exposed.56 - God described the sins of Judah and how He sent His messengers to warn them.

But the people mocked the messengers, despised God's words, and scoffed at His prophets.

For such people, there was no remedy.

God had no other solution: He sent them into captivity.56

- The New Testament likewise warns us not to despise the chastening of the Lord.

We should realize that chastisement and rebuke from God's word is based on God's love for us.

Like the parent who corrects a disobedient child, God corrects us hoping to lead us to be righteous (vv 7-11).

1]Again, rebuke of sin is an act of love, not of hatred.

Properly done, it is for the benefit of one in sin to lead him to repent and be saved.

When people resent it, they hate the word of God.Some people hate truth by refusing to obey it0 - God says the wicked hate instruction and cast His words behind them.

They consent with thieves and fellowship adulterers, speak evil, slandering their brothers, etc.

Note that these people claimed God's covenant and taught His word (v16).

But God says they had no right to, because their conduct showed they hated His word.7290 - Foolish people despise wisdom and instruction.

They hate knowledge and despise reproof, because they will not listen to His teaching (vv 25,30).

Their hatred is not open, deliberate antagonism; it is simply a failure to appreciate truth enough to obey it.Again, note who is guilty of sinful hatred.

Our society thinks that the person who seeks to correct sinners and lead them to the light is guilty of hate.

The media repeatedly characterizes people who speak against homosexuality as full of hate.

People who read our web site often accuse us of speaking from hatred because our articles rebuke sin.But God says the person with sinful hatred is the person who resents teaching that shows people their error, or people who simply do not obey what God says.

All such constitutes hatred of God's word.45;0;1;3;1;90;9;9;4;4;23;1;3;502;9;9;12]C.

Righteous People and Righteous ConductProverbs 29:27 - An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous.

And he who is upright is an abomination to the wicked.

Someone might think it would make sense to hate wicked people, but why would anyone hate good people?

Again, we will see there may be several reasons.Some people resent goodness, because it shows they are wrong29 - Some people hate good and love evil.

They abhor justice.

Good people don't hate goodness.

People hate good when they themselves are evil and when they love being evil.

They practice what is wrong and they don't want to change.1 - The world hates Jesus' followers for the same reasons it hated Him, and it will treat us like it treated Him.

They hate Jesus' disciples because they are not like the world and because they do not know the Father.

[17:14;3]People tend to resent anything significantly different from what they are, whether better or worse.

We can see why people would resent evil conduct: criminals, terrorists, etc.

But they also resent people who live significantly better than they do, because it exposes their evil.2

- Men will hate Jesus' followers, exclude them, revile then, and cast out their name as evil.

I remember a final exam I had in high school freshman algebra.

Afterward, I overheard one girl say to another, "Do you know some dummy went and got 99% on the final.

He ruined the whole curve!"

Likewise, people resent those who try to live really good lives.

People act as though God will grade "on the curve."

If everybody's bad, then they think they have an excuse for their evil.

"Everybody does it."

Nobody's any better, so God will just have to make allowances.

But if some people are really good, they "ruin the curve."

They prove that other people could live good lives too, and there's no excuse for those who don't.The proper response when we observe goodness in others is, not to resent it, but to learn from it and imitate it.

God will not tolerate or excuse those who resent goodness in others.Some people resent good people who rebuke their sins0 - They hate the one who rebukes in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks uprightly.

This is the same attitude that leads people to resent God's word: it tells them they are wrong, and they don't want to change.

Likewise, they resent good people who tell them they are wrong5 - People despise what is good (v3) when they themselves practice evil: lovers of themselves and of money, proud, unholy, unloving, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

When people don't love God and that which is good, it is because they love other things, including pleasure and all kinds of evil.