Morning, May 29

Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings

"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 pretence 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 forever 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.