STAND STRONG
STAND STRONG
6.15 - Hate What the Lord Hates
When the Proverbs tell us that God hates something or finds it detestable, it is worth pausing to consider why. As we learn more about God and his nature, we will better understand how we are called to love what he loves and hate what he hates.
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Paul and Noah both preach and teach with the Cedar Park church of Christ in Cedar Park, TX. You can visit our site at: https://www.cedarparkchurchofchrist.org/
Hello, hello again. Welcome to everyone who is following us in this Proverbs Project Season 6. Welcome to you to Noah. Noah, welcome to you today. We're in the studio dealing with Episode 15, and where we wanted to go today, we've titled this Hate What the Lord Hates. Hate What the Lord Hates. Yep. And clearly we're going to see some passages where the Lord says, I abhor this. I hate this. I'm utterly disgusted by this. But I thought in the beginning, Noah, what, what would be A good idea is just to make sure that we're all on the same page with, yes, the Lord says I hate these things I'm disgusted utterly, I abhor these things, but, you know, we don't spend a lot of time talking about why, and that's going to come up some in our discussion, but I think it's, it's important to say in the beginning, the Lord hates these things because they're in opposition to who He is.
Exactly.
Paul:He's holy. He's love. He's truthful. He's faithful. He's gentle. And so he hates all that is in opposition to who he is. He is by nature his character and he also hates all those things are in opposition to what he loves.
Yeah.
Paul:And he loves unity. He loves peace. He loves justice. He loves light. Exactly. Exactly. And so the Lord is utterly disgusted by those who think this way, live this way, treat others this way. I mean, that's where Solomon is going in this. So that we understand something about the Lord. And then understand something about how that should impact our lives and affect us as imitators of him. We need to hate what he hates.
Exactly. That, that is the, the place to start. When we're reading passages like we're going to be reading that so clearly lay out, very plainly, very directly, Lay out here are things that God hates that provides an opportunity for us it's an opportunity to reflect on God on who he is his nature his values his character and Then to look at ourselves and ask the question of how do we reflect those characteristics in those values? In our own lives, right? So that's the place to start.
Paul:Well, I want us to go to Proverbs 6. That's the one that gets most of the attention in several passages in Proverbs 6. And Noah, I'm going to get you to read that, but let me say this, the danger of the tendency as I see it. And we're going to have a discussion for the next 20 minutes on hating what the Lord hates. We don't want to be those people who think, okay, well, this podcast, this episode is clearly only for those who are heathen and pagans. Those that are already in the prisons or headed for prisons. Those that don't know Jesus don't care anything about Jesus. That's who this, this podcast is for. Episode is for right. It's not for us. Upstanding church going folks. Well, okay. Stay with us. All right. Let's get Proverbs six, Noah versus 16 through 19 in Proverbs six.
All right. Proverbs 16 through 19. This time I'm going to be reading from the Christian standard Bible. The Lord hates six things. In fact, seven are detestable to him. Arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that plots wicked schemes. Feet eager to run to evil, a lying witness who gives false testimony, and one who stirs up trouble among brothers. That is Proverbs 6 verses 16 through 19. I I got to say it starts off with arrogant eyes and I I tend to think that that's not a coincidence that it starts there. Just an observation about sin in general is so much of sin comes from selfishness. And from pride. Yeah, it's a self centered, self aggrandizing type of behavior. And, and it's, it's very important to notice that we do not have to fit the typical bill of self aggrandization in order to be proud in some way.
Paul:Right.
And so we may not look Like the typical, you know, chest puffed out proud person and we can still find ourselves here.
Paul:Yeah. It's interesting. Arrogant eyes, you know, other translations have a proud look,
arrogant
Paul:eyes. I like that arrogant eyes in chapter 16 of Proverbs verse five, the Lord hates or detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this. He says they will not go unpunished. So the proud of heart or eyes that are arrogant.
Yeah,
Paul:there's a lot of application there.
Yeah, I think a good companion verse in Proverbs 8 verse 13 Says to fear the Lord is to hate evil I hate arrogant pride, evil conduct, and perverse speech. If you connect that together, pride, the idea of pride, flies in the face of what it means to fear the Lord. You go back to Proverbs chapter 1, that's what Proverbs is basically about. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And to be proud, that just completely is opposite of the idea of fearing the Lord. And I think that's part of why It's so dangerous is it can be devastating to how we view God and how we view others. And it can be so subtle in how it can manifest itself in our own lives. Yeah.
Paul:You're very true about the subtlety and how it manifests itself in our life, especially in relationship to how we now see people. I mean, look, to fear the Lord beans, walking in wisdom means I need to see people the way the Lord sees people and arrogant eyes will always keep me from that. Yes, a proud look is always going to get in the way of that. So this holier than thou attitude, this, this thought in my heart that makes me feel or elevates myself to a level of superiority over someone else because and fill in the blank, that's going to create a lot of bad things. in community. It's going to keep people from seeing things that they need to see in themselves. Just why sometimes am I prone to think I'm better than someone else?
Yeah, that's a big question. It is a big question. And the thing is, you know, there's always the easy answer, but I think there's something profound in pointing out here that when we're talking about God's character and pride being God's character, that shouldn't surprise us. And it shouldn't surprise us that God values humility because ultimately, I mean, we, we have the ultimate example to point to when we point to Jesus. He was the ultimate demonstration of humility. It simply by being incarnated into his own creation. That's a show of humility, but to be incarnated in the way that he was, and then to, to minister the way that he did and suffer the death that he suffered. Jesus is the picture of humility. And we can see that as, as a trait of God in the flesh. So it shouldn't surprise us that God then says to us, I hate pride. I hate pride. And I value humility in my people. Yes.
Paul:Love that. He mentions lying lips.
Mm hmm. That's the next one. Lying lips or a lying tongue. Dishonest dishonest hearts, dishonest words is the next one in this section.
Paul:Yeah, Proverbs 12, verse 22, lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal truthfully are his delight. I mean, there's, there's so much more that's packed inside of this. God's not just telling us, Hey, I hate those people that, that, that don't tell the truth. Right. That's a part of it. But there's much more that's behind people who, who don't deal in truthfully. truth, they, they deal in their areas of falsehood or deception or hath truths.
Yes. Yeah. God values. He delights in is how it's put there in Proverbs 12 those who are honest and faithful. And the fact is when people are valued truth and honesty and integrity, they have no fear of the light. We see that image used in the new Testament that the works of evil are done in darkness. The works of, of God and His people, they have no fear of, of being exposed. And so truth and honesty and integrity, they don't, there's nothing to be afraid of in that instance. And I think that that's part of what underlies this lying tongue is the deception indicates that there's something to deceive about, there's something to hide. And God says, you shouldn't be living a life that necessitates that anyway, lying, Jesus said in John chapter eight, that's of your father, the devil, right? Then in that context, he's talking to people and he's saying, you, you belong to your father and your father's the father of lies. Yeah.
Paul:God is a God of truth and he expects his people speak truth. It's everyone with his neighbor. He's not just telling us, hey, it's wrong to lie. He's telling us something about himself. And he says, now, if you're going to be followers of mine, if you're going to be my people, you deal in truth. You don't deal in error or what is false. You're the kind of person that others can trust. You're the kind of person that others can depend on that. I don't have to question whether or not you're operating in the realm of truth and that you're what you're saying. I, I can believe
yes, that integrity in how we treat other people is a big part of it as well. I mean, we're called. We're called to show compassion and mercy and to, to deal justly with people. And so, for instance, in Proverbs 11, one dishonest scales are detestable to the Lord, but an accurate weight is in his delight. I mean, that's a specific application to how we deal with other people in, in the context of business that that's what that would have been applied to. But that comes back to the same thing. Can people trust us as God's people? We ought to be trustworthy. And God wants us to be trustworthy.
Paul:Yeah, I think in the area of lying in business, that is trying to make profit or gain through deception is is the symptom of a bigger problem.
Yes.
Paul:I'm not saying that, okay, well then let's ignore that and go to the root problem because the Lord says, I hate that as much as I hate anything else. Maybe he's saying, I hate this because I know it creates so many other bad things in you. It can do a lot of other harm in other areas. You need to be a person that's trustworthy.
Right.
Paul:Right. Hands, Noah, he says, no, he hates this hands that shed innocent blood.
Hmm. You know, pretty unilaterally throughout history. There has been some kind of cultural kibosh on murder.
Paul:Hang on, hang on. Y'all just heard cultural kibosh. Please write that down. That's going to be a bullet point at some point in time. And maybe one of my sermons, cultural kibosh. I've got to hear this.
Well, all I'm saying is we can observe throughout history that Through, and this can get into a larger discussion, but through being created in God's image and being created as moral creatures. There's been a cultural recognition both through the instruction of God and how he created us that life is valuable and and murder is wrong Right, but different cultures almost every culture throughout history has found ways to push that boundary as well Yes, I mean from the very beginning almost You you know, if you go to lamech the you know, great great Great grandson of Cain. He's descendant of Cain. And he looks back at Cain and he says, I killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. And he says, and God's going to avenge me too. If you know, if anyone does anything against me, I mean, he clearly did not understand this idea of shedding innocent blood being a problem. And we can move forward there to Exodus one Pharaoh's treatments of, of the Israelites. Well, they're getting too powerful for us. So here we can kill their, we can kill their children. Well, obviously, you know, we look back at that and we say, well, that's barbaric. But every culture, ours included, has found ways to push this boundary throughout all of history. The Lord created life, and he values life, and he wants his creation to value life.
Paul:Yeah. You're going all the way back. You could go all the way back to Cain.
Right.
Paul:I mean, Cain, Genesis 4, Cain kills his own brother, Abel, but it's interesting how the Lord responds to that. He says, hey The blood of Abel cries out to me from the ground.
Yeah.
Paul:God takes notice of the shedding of innocent blood. And I'm not the Lord and I cannot speak for the Lord, whether, but I do know that he holds people, he holds nations accountable for Innocent bloodshed and murder. I had down in some of my notes on this point, I could talk a while about abortion.
Yep.
Paul:It's gotta be in there, Noah. It has to be in there. This hands that shed innocent blood, how the Lord looks at abortion. how he looks at murder. And the bigger question we could ask for another time, I think it's worthy to ask the question, is okay, Genesis 4 is telling us Cain kills Abel, but it also tells us why.
I mean,
Paul:we can see why he did it. Shed innocent blood.
Yes.
Paul:So whatever the reason for the, why, if the shedding of blood, the innocent blood, the murder, God says, I abhor that.
Yep. Yeah. That's seeing that so potently illustrated all the way back with Cain and then his descendants. And then we can fast forward and see how quickly this gets out of hand, you know, Jacob's brothers wanting to kill him and, and all of those sorts of things. There's. There's this lack of respect for the life that God has created, and God takes notice. I think that's a really powerful point.
Paul:Heart that devises wicked plans.
Yes. The plotting of wicked schemes that you know, I think even, even though here in Proverbs 6, it separates them out. The heart that plots wicked schemes and the feet that are eager to run to evil, those pair together very well. They're counted separately but. Wrong is wrong, and evil is evil, but the Proverbs writer is making a distinction here between doing wrong things and planning to do wrong things.
Paul:Say that again. Yes.
The Proverbs writer is making a distinction between doing something wrong, doing wrong things, and planning or plotting to do wrong things. Yes,
Paul:and he starts with the thought.
Yes.
Paul:Before the action. Man, he doesn't tell us why. So this is purely me inserting my opinion, and I have to be careful. But look, isn't it human nature for us to say, Well, I didn't actually commit the act. I just couldn't sleep at night because I was trying to figure out a way. I was, I was, plotting and planning and having thoughts that were tossed back and forth in my mind when I couldn't sleep at night, trying to think of a way to get even with this person, trying to think of a way to just do them harm
or
Paul:to slander their name.
Yeah.
Paul:I mean, hearts that devise Wicked plans. Proverbs 15, 26, the thoughts or the plans, depending on the translations, of the wicked or an abomination of the Lord, but the words of the pure are pleasant. The contrast between the thoughts and plans of the wicked versus the words of the pure. But if, if you've got somebody who is, is trying to devise a way out that I said to get even or to hurt someone. Lord says, I hate that.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. You were there in Proverbs 15 earlier in Proverbs 15, beginning in verse eight, he says the sacrifice of the wicked is detestable to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is his delight. The Lord detests the way of the wicked, but he loves the one who pursues Righteousness and I like the phrasing pursues righteousness because it to me It's such a huge contrast to the idea of the feet who are which are eager to run to evil What what God values what God wants is? the one who pursues righteousness Not the one who's stewing and contemplating and who's eager toward committing evil. Our intent in doing things matters, and God wants people whose intent is to pursue righteousness. Yeah,
Paul:the eagerness needs to be for God and what is righteous.
Yeah.
Paul:Or God honoring. I'm back to the thoughts though, Noah. This jumps out of Proverbs, but I mean, God's people actually got to this point. So God sent a prophet to, to deal with this in the people. And he says in Micah two and verse one, whoa, to those. So like an attention getter, if you're reading something in Proverbs, it says the Lord hates this and is disgusted by it. And if you're hearing a prophet say, whoa,
you
Paul:know, You need to pay attention. Woe to those who plan iniquity, to those who plot evil on their beds. At morning's light, they carry it out because it is in their power to do it. So they carry it out, but what did they do first? They thought about it. Yes. They planned it. They plotted it. And because they knew they had the power to pull it off, they had to lay awake at night figuring out, okay, where do I start? Who else do I get involved in this plan? And we think, well, we don't do that today. I mean, we're, we're, we're destroying and weakening local churches and families because someone's, you know, planning and devising a way to get even with someone or to hurt someone on. And so that's why we gossip about them and slander their name and try to get others to come along on our side about this and join with us. The act, what fought, what precedes the action is the thought. And the Lord says, I abhor the thought because you're going to eventually be the person that you may not have been eager to run to do this, but eventually you're going to like, Oh, I'm going to do more of this.
Yeah. The thought is the instigation point. And the fact is the thought is where the intent comes from, right? This evil intent. And we've already said intent matters. There's a difference between doing wrong and planning to do wrong. I think a really potent example of this where evil intent can corrupt things that are even supposed to be good. In Proverbs 21 verse 27, the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination. How much more when he brings it with evil intent? I mean, our, our thoughts, how we're thinking about what we're doing matters because evil intent can take something good, like sacrifice, like worship and make it evil. Which is challenging, sobering.
Paul:Oh, now, now you've moved into the area of how it affects our worship. I liked that you mentioned the Proverbs 21, 27, read it in again, Proverbs 21, 27, the sacrifice of the wicked is detestable. That is, I hate the sacrifice of the wicked. And you refer to that in Proverbs 15 earlier.
And then
Paul:he says how much more so when brought with evil intent. And there's a couple of things that are possible when he says how much more so when brought with evil intent in the mind of the wicked worshiper. There could be a couple of things going on, and neither one of these are good. One, the wicked worshipper or the sacrifice of the wicked, he thinks he can bribe God. He thinks he can offer enough worship and give enough money and God will excuse his sins. And the second thing that can go on with evil intent that creates hypocritical worship is trying to impress others in a public way. I mean, he's describing a person as it relates to their worship in Proverbs 15 and Proverbs 21, that clearly they're, they're not interested. in taking care of their sin. They're aware of their sin. They know full well that they're not honoring God by their life, but they're not interested in coming and bringing their sins to God, softening their heart and truly changing their mind and their will. No, they're going to, they're going to offer all these things to God, assuming that I've done enough. God, God will excuse this because I've done this. Or I need others to see me this way because, you know, if others think that I'm so pious and, and, and I'm, I'm so good for this local church that they're not going to come talk to me about my sins. All they're going to see is this side of me for one or two hours or three hours a week and think they can't be that bad.
Yeah, that is, that is a challenging thing to think about for sure. Well, we've talked about the idea of plotting wicked schemes and I we've touched on the eagerness, for evil There's kind of a progression there. The sixth thing in this list is the the lying witness the false testimony To me this one builds on the earlier concept of the lying tongue but it just it specifies that the idea of this lying is with the intent of hurting others or perverting Justice. And when I think of Proverbs about perverting justice, I can't help, but think of Proverbs 17, 15, where it says acquitting the guilty and condemning the just both are detestable to the Lord. Yeah.
Paul:Both of those. I mean, you're ruining lives, whichever way, which other approach to take somebody's life is ruined,
right?
Paul:Unnecessary. So, because you perverted justice, you're saying something that's not true. Yeah. About someone else.
Well, I'm looking at the time and I think we might need to get to number seven here. If you're, if you're ready for it, the one that says the one who stirs up trouble among brothers, or I believe you had a translation that was that causes division or strife. Is that correct?
Paul:Yes. So sewing discord,
sewing discord among brothers,
Paul:among brethren, it centric. He, he mentions the sewing of discord. But the song of discord among brethren, it's back to where we started. You know, when God says, I hate these things because they stand in opposition to what or who he loves.
Yeah.
Paul:And if, if you're ruining people's lives, God loves, God loves everyone. And you're ruining, you're ruining those that God loves or God values highly. I mean, how good and how pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in, and everybody's finishing that. No, it's unity, right? Well, if I'm the kind of person that is destroying something or weakening what God loves unity among his people, then we ought not to be shocked by the fact that God says that's detestable to me.
Right at first blush. When we read it, we might go, well, this, this, We might be kind of taking a little bit back. This doesn't seem to fit in with like the, the hands that shed innocent blood. Like this seems to be maybe on a little bit different level, but the fact is that God is expressing a hatred for those who through their pride, which we've already talked about and their dishonesty, which we've already talked about and their cruelty, which we've already talked about. Did you see the theme here and their injustice that through these things, they seek to cause trouble. and they enjoy the divisiveness of it. And that ought to, that ought to step on our toes a little bit sometimes. The idea that God is not pleased with people who enjoy division or people who enjoy disunity.
Paul:Yeah, I mean think think about some of the things that we've that's already been highlighted here in Proverbs 6 The Lord has already said I hate
this
Paul:This utterly disgusts me And that's why I started making the point, you know, it's well we read these things and think well, that's for everybody else It's not talking to me. It's for the people that never go to church It's for the people that don't know jesus don't love jesus It's for those in prisons, those soon to go to prisons. We ought not to be surprised. I mean, you and I could have talked for 20 minutes just upon abortion, right? And probably 90 plus. of those that are listening to us would have said, Amen, the Lord hates it. And I do too the shedding of innocent blood or, or people that are devising wicked schemes, I mean, we'd say, I hate that. And the Lord hates that too. Or the people who are, I think you read from Proverbs 17 to, to attach it to some of these, those who justify the wicked and who condemn the righteous, both of those the Lord hates.
You
Paul:know, we live in a world that tries to condemn the innocent and then says, let the wicked go. Or you could say it this way, tries to make what God says is clearly sinful, make it socially acceptable. And everybody says, look, people who are trying to say, you know, we, we should just make homosexuality and lesbianism socially acceptable in our churches. People say, we can't do that. God, God hates that sinful behavior. Those who willfully choose to behave in ways that are sinful. God hates that. And we should hate that action and that sin too. But then all of a sudden we get to this sowing discord. It's like, Oh, wait a minute.
That's us.
Paul:That could be me sometimes. Yeah.
Yeah. It's a lot easier when we're able to, you know, we don't feel like Lamek saying, Hey, I, I killed a young man and I don't think anybody's going to do anything about it. Oh, that's, it's hard for us to relate to that, I think. But then we get to this last one and we realize God desires people. to find reasons for unity, not reasons to stir up trouble. There's going to be enough difficulty from legitimate discussions over the truth of God. We don't need to add on to that pile by just enjoying or pursuing divisiveness. And, and that, That's an uncomfortable truth for us, I think, at times. It's very uncomfortable.
Paul:Well, we, we've pushed the limits, I know, but clearly the Lord hates these. If, if I'm in, in this camp, I need to hate this in me and then ask the Lord to help me to deal with that because we need to feel about these things the way the Lord feels about these things. And if I'm a part of it, then I need, I need to see what the Lord can do to help me to overcome these. Okay, Noah where are we going next? Lord willing.
Oh, well, next week we are continuing to move on in the Proverbs project here, and next week the title is The Why of Choosing Friends. Proverbs has a lot to say about who we should seek out and who we should avoid, and I think more important for our discussion next week, Proverbs offers reasons why. It suggests those things and we want to spend some time next week looking at that.
Paul:Yeah, I think that's a good thing. Well, thank you for today for those who are following us and listening today. We appreciate the heart that you have in all of this and the support behind this. Our intent in going through the Proverbs is to see God the way we need to see God and see other people the way God sees other people. Just trying to live life with the least amount of difficulties in such a way that surely brings the Lord glory and honor. We'll do that together, and together we hope with the Lord's help we can stand strong.
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