Hate Evil

All throughout the Bible we are encouraged to fear the LORD, but what does that mean? One verse especially tells us what it is. To some it will come as a surprise:

To fear the LORD is to hate evil. (Prov 8:13)

If you really fear the LORD you hate evil. Most know what hate is, but what could be included in evil, besides the obvious sin? The Bible says falsehood. That too may surprise some but it magnifies the supreme importance of truth, the opposite of falsehood:

The righteous hate what is false. (Prov 13:5)

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. (1 Cor 13:6)

Christians are to fear God and show it by hating sin and falsehood. Now that we have established that, let me again draw your attention to the word hate. If you hate evil, you are not neutral about it. Instead you will be repulsed, annoyed, troubled and bothered by it. Christians love God’s truth, but hate evil, including what is false. That should describe you. Do you hate false doctrine regarding salvation, especially once saved always saved? You should be hating eternal security, since it is so diabolical. Perhaps, you aren’t even sure what the truth is, yet think you are a solid Christian. If you don’t know what is true, you can’t hate what is false. If you can’t do that you aren’t fearing the LORD, as you might have thought!

Things which are obvious sin should be hated. This should be clear, but do you really hate wickedness? Sins such as listed in 1 Cor. 6:9,10; Rev. 21:8; Gal. 5:19-21; etc are spiritual poison which ruin lives here and send souls to eternal torment after death. They must be hated and avoided, even more than dangerous things in the natural. In fact, sin is much more serious than any potentially deadly thing in the natural because it can send you to the lake of fire for eternity. Hate evil.