Thursday, June 5, 2014

Thou Hatest Wickedness

  One of the most popular questions I get is “What do you recommend for reading?” Of the authors that I read two rise to the top, God and Spurgeon. I read more of God’s word than I do of Spurgeon’s stuff, but rarely a day passes when I do not read Charles H. Spurgeon. Although the language in my copy is old I get a lot of comfort, encouragement, conviction, and doctrinal teaching from Spurgeon’s little book “Morning And Evening.” 

This morning’s selection produced conviction. With conviction of sin still on my mind from last Sunday (1 Samuel 7:3-6), I want to share what I learned from Spurgeon this week on that topic. Here is one of the daily morning passages from C. H. Spurgeon’s “Morning and Evening.” 

May 29 (Morning)

“Thou hatest wickedness.” — Psalm 45:7

“Be ye angry, and sin not.” There can hardly be goodness in a man if he be not angry at sin; he who loves truth must hate every false way. How our Lord Jesus hated it when the temptation came! Thrice it assailed Him in different forms, but ever He met it with, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” He hated it in others; none the less fervently because He showed His hate oftener in tears of pity than in words of rebuke; yet what language could be more stern, more Elijah-like, than the words, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayer.” He hated wickedness, so much that He bled to wound it to the heart; He died that it might die; He was buried that He might bury it in His tomb; and He rose that He might for ever trample it beneath His feet. Christ is in the Gospel, and that Gospel is opposed to wickedness in every shape. Wickedness arrays itself in fair garments, and imitates the language of holiness; but the precepts of Jesus, like His famous scourge of small cords, chase it out of the temple, and will not tolerate it in the Church. So, too, in the heart where Jesus reigns, what war there is between Christ and Belial! And when our Redeemer shall come to be our Judge, those thundering words, “Depart, ye cursed” which are, indeed, but a prolongation of His life-teaching concerning sin, shall manifest His abhorrence of iniquity. As warm as is His love to sinners, so hot is His hatred of sin; as perfect as is His righteousness, so complete shall be the destruction of every form of wickedness. O thou glorious champion of right, and destroyer of wrong, for this cause hath God, even Thy God, anointed thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.

Dear  reader, I pray that God will give you and me an honest hatred for our own sin. And I pray that he will give enough grace and wisdom so that we can take an honest personal inventory of our spiritual lives. Oh, that we would repent like God’s children, Israel, who said “We have sinned against the LORD” (1 Sam 7:6).