Advent 1 2008
O you who love the Lord, Hate evil! In the Season of Advent, we prepare for the coming of
the Lord. In preparing, we are to spend the next four weeks looking at our own lives to cast
away the works of darkness. If we really hate evil as the people of God, we should not
have anything to do with it at any level. Yet, history and our own day are full of examples of
both temptations for His people to do evil and of those that have fallen and live in rampant
sin and evil. We all agree that sin is evil. Yet, what does this mean for us on a daily level?
Let us look into this from our lessons this morning.
Covenant of Death
In Isaiah 28:14, we read that the people of God had entered into a covenant with death
and an agreement with sheol. The end of the verse concludes that these men had made
such pacts because they had made lies their refuge and had hidden themselves under
falsehood. By living in the ways of this wicked world, man turns his back on the Lord and
makes evil his companion.
Instead of following Christ, the wicked cling to sin. In our day, we find it difficult because
we live in a culture that clings to every form of evil. We indeed see every day a chilling
parallel between the leadership of Jerusalem in Isaiah’s day with making a covenant with
death and our nation. Some have described our nation as a “culture of death.” In having
such an emphasis on supporting sinful lifestyles, we have turned to neglecting the rights of
the unborn. In having such a bent toward evil, we throw a person in jail for decades that
has stolen money from a bank while we barely punish pedophiles for crimes against
children. Truly, our nation no longer cares for morality.
Hating evil or sin in a climate such as ours is easier said than done. This has always
been the case for God’s people. In the time of Isaiah, this was true as a myriad of
temptations faced the people to turn from the Lord to the evil ways of the peoples that
surrounded them. The words we read this morning from this Prophet do not bode well for
this group that had turned to evil. Hating evil is no different today than it was for the
Psalmist so long ago.
It is hard to hate something that tries to appeal to us and tempt us into believing that it
is not really so bad or sinful. The same lie that goes back to the Garden of Eden is in force
still, that of saying if you commit this sin or that sin, you will not surely die. The whole point
of evil is that it is an act of hatred toward God and our neighbors. So, the hatred exhibited
by those in sin by sinning are meant to harm others. Note the following at the end of
Romans 13:13, “not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and
envy.” Every sin that is to be avoided here are things that look appealing to sinful man; but
in the end when actually committed bring much harm and heartache to others. All sin is
selfish and is meant to trample and harm our fellow human beings. Evil is hatred of God
and our neighbors.
How do we avoid making a covenant with death as is so easy to do? Simply, to avoid
this we must love and hate evil properly.
Love
The only way to really hate evil is to love with the love of Christ. The question one has
to ask in the current climate we live in when we are labeled as “haters” for standing for
God’s Word which is at odds with our culture is this, “how do you define love?” The answer
will leave the other side a bit perplexed as we are doing this in response to being labeled
haters. To sinful man, love has become twisted to mean only something that is prideful and
selfish, me centered. To the person mired in an evil lifestyle, love has really been
redefined into a form of self-hatred and self-destruction. Usually, love as defined by the
sinner only means what makes ME feel good regardless of the consequences.
This is where we as the people of God can really preach Christ in countering their
answer on love with Christ’s love. God’s love is sacrificial. It gives rather than harms. It puts
its life down for others rather than thinking about “me” all the time. Love in the true
Christian sense is defined here in Romans 13:10 by Paul, “LOVE DOES NO HARM TO A
NEIGHBOR; THEREFORE LOVE IS THE FULFILLMENT OF THE LAW.” To love we must
give up selfishness.
To love in Christ’s love of giving of ourselves means we give up the selfish sins that
plague our society. Loving in Christ’s manner means we give up revelry, drunkenness,
lewdness, lust, strife and envy. We are to repent of these things and live a new life in
Christ. Love is not easy. Hating evil is not easy.
To truly hate evil, we are to love by heaping coals of fire on our enemies through
feeding him and giving him drink as Paul quotes in Romans 12:20. Hating evil through
Christ’s love is explained well here by Paul in Romans 12:21, “Do not be overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good.” We are overcome by evil when we resort to the ways of this
world in trying to counter what the wicked do to us. In other words, the people of God
should not go about physically harming others as those we counter do quite consistently.
Overcoming evil with good in Christ’s love is the only way, for it is God’s way.
Loving means we as the people of God give up sin ourselves. Our witness is only
compromised when we do not give up sin and are busy pointing out the sin of others. The
only way for us to do this is to put on Jesus Christ, put on His armor of light and to walk
properly. Putting on Jesus Christ and His armor means we are busily casting off the works
of darkness and busily LOVE by being faithful to each other and sacrificing for each other.
When we think we are at our wits end with the culture we live in and it propensity
toward evil, we must take heart and remember the other part of our theme verse this
morning in Psalm 97:10. God preserves the souls of His saints and He delivers them out of
the hand of the wicked. We are to stay steadfast in His love by rejecting SIN and calling
those living in evil and sin to come to Christ and His true love. The major difference
between the Christian and those who are mired in wickedness is that they use their
blasphemous hateful words and often physical attacks while the Christian is to offer Christ’
s love, peace, and offer of repentance and new life. No matter how things look, He
preserves us and delivers us.
We fail and fall into evil ourselves when we lash out without the love of God and use
the weapons of the enemy. Sin is an insidious enemy we all fight on a daily basis. Hating
evil can only be properly accomplished in Christ’s love and no other manner. Loving
means we sacrifice what may make us feel good for a short period of time.
Godly love strips Satan of his power over people by having people give of themselves
for others while giving up the things that cause them to trample and harm others. This is
the bottom line of the issue today in our culture. Sin is sin, pure and simple. Sin causes
harm to others, even death. All one has to do in looking at any sin is to look down its path
in the long term. Pick any sin and then look at its effects on those mired in it. Those that
choose to live in unfaithfulness through sexual impurity of any kind end up emotionally
drained, depressed, sometimes even very ill, and eventually even dead as a result of
following their sinful passions. There are consequences for all sins as well as blessings for
all obedience to God. We may not be able to see the immediate results of either living in
sin or obeying God’s Word, but they will surface over time the longer we either live in sin or
live in Christ.
Conclusion
At the start of this new Church Year with this Advent Season, let us continue to cast
away the works of darkness in our own lives. Let us continue to encourage others to cast
away wickedness from their own lives by coming to Jesus Christ in faith. Let us learn what
it means to hate evil by the love of God in our day and age. We are in many ways fighting
the same fight as Isaiah fought in his day. Do we have the courage in Christ to hate evil by
His love? “OWE NO MAN ANYTHING EXCEPT TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER, FOR HE WHO
LOVES ANOTHER HAS FULFILLED THE LAW.” Amen.