Meditating Through the Psalms – Day 97

“O you who love the LORD, hate evil!” (Psalm 97:10a)

What a glaring indictment this sentence has on modern American Christianity. First, it seems that in our modern Christian culture we have decided that we do not want to call sin evil; or at least not all sin. We may look at the most gruesome acts of depravity and declare them to be evil, but when it comes to the most common sins among us we view them with less harshness. For instance murder, rape, animal cruelty, to name a few, would certainly be considered by most people as evil. However, when we think of lying, cheating, stealing, adultery, or sex outside of marriage we tend not to view such things as evil.

In the economy of God’s righteousness every sin is evil because sin is a blatant disregard for the holy and righteous God’s character and the standard to which He has established. Sin, all sin, is against an eternally holy and righteous God and is therefore and act of evil and deserves the an eternal punishment. Our general problem with identifying all sin as evil is that we have a low estimation of the character of God in our culture today. If we could ever get back to the place where we taught and preached about and in light of the immense holiness and righteousness of God I think we would raise up disciples who understood the utter depravity behind all sin. Such an understanding would elevate our level of worship and increase our vigilance against temptation and sin. So, in a culture where sin is tolerated and toned down, let us hear the Psalmist’s cry, “O you who love the LORD, hate evil!”

Grace to all,

Ronnie