I like Mark Lowry. He is funny
and talented. Recently, I read this
quotation posted from him on a friend's Facebook page.
Would you hit the "like" button for this?
I understand the main message of Lowry's comment rightly points to our
need to humble ourselves before God and to focus on taking the log of our own
eyes before commenting upon the splinters in another person's eye. We
must not speak of another's sin as though it were alien to our own souls.
Condemning sin from a position of self-righteousness negates the Gospel
message of God's righteousness available to us by His grace through faith in
Jesus. We indeed are hypocrites if we condemn sin in others' lives that
we are not willing to confess and condemn when those sins or similar sins
reside in our own soul. I get this.
But Lowry's comment goes way
beyond that message. His comment indicates that we should not repeat the
truth that God has revealed to us about sin when sin is attached to anyone
other than ourselves. Is this what love demands of us? I think many
in the church today agree with Lowry. But I would argue that this
response is extremely unloving. Love
requires us to find time to hate all sin.
Why do I say that love requires us to hate all sin?
1. Love hates all sin because sin causes the sinner to
die.
Hating the sin of another is not harmful to another person, but
helpful. Every sin brings some kind of
death to an individual. Some sins bring
death more tragically and visually than other sins, but all sin brings death
upon the sinner. Imagine a friend who has
become addicted to heroin. His sin locks
him into the world of physical, emotional, relational and spiritual death. Just a year earlier, your friend looked
healthy. He was excelling in his work;
he was happy with his wife and children at home; he was worshipping God in
church. But now, he is emaciated in
appearance; he has been fired from his job; he has abandoned his family and he
is disconnected from God. Can you
imagine saying to your friend, “I do not have time to hate your sin.”? Every sin brings forth death, even those sins
that seem more innocuous. A friend loves
at all times and cares enough to confront sin in gentleness. This is the very heart of God’s instructions
in Galatians 6 and James 5:
Galatians 6:1 "Brothers,if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are
spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself,
lest you too be tempted."
James 5:19 -20 "My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and
someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from
his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins."
2. Love hates all sin because sin causes innocents to
suffer.
Many sins harm not only the person committing the sin, but also injure
other “innocents.” I use this word
“innocents” to describe the people who are directly harmed by another’s sin
through no involvement of their own.
Hating the sin of another person is often necessary to loving those
who are the victims of sin. For instance,
love demands that I hate the sin of the rapist.
Love demands that I hate the sin of the slanderer, the murderer, the
thief, the adulterer, the oppressor, etc . . . Love cannot say to the parents of a molested
child, “I do not have time to hate the sin of the man who molested your
son.” Love hates sin because sin brings
unjust pain and suffering upon innocents.
Isaiah the prophet wisely counsels us:
Isaiah 1:16-17 "Wash yourselves; make
yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to
do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the
fatherless, plead the widow’s cause."
I love that Isaiah urges us first to wash ourselves and remove evil from
our own lives. But his counsel urges us
to hate evil, not only in our own lives, but also in the lives of others. Only as we hate others' sins are we able to “correct
oppression” and “bring justice to the fatherless.”
3.
Love hates all sin because sin caused Christ to suffer on the cross.
Love for Jesus’ requires that we hate sin in every form and every
person. We cannot be apathetic to any
sin when we know what suffering sin brought upon our Savior. What grief sin brought upon Him! What unspeakable pain was His because of
sin. Yes, we are right to personalize
Jesus’ pain by acknowledging that our sins nailed Him to the tree. Yet our love for Jesus forever turns our
hearts away from all sin with a disgust that it rightly deserves.
It is a passion for God’s glory that causes the psalmist to say: Psalm 97:10 "O you who love the LORD, hate evil!"
4.
Love hate all sin because God is love and He hates all sin.
God hates all evil and we are never wrong when we imitate Him. It is God’s hatred of sin that motivates our
hatred of it. We do not hate sin because
it offends our natural bent, but because it strikes at God’s glory as our
Creator, Sustainer, Master and Savior. As
believers, we carry an awe of God that changes the way we think about those sins
that our flesh accepts. The more we
reverence Him; the more we will hate sin in every form. Consider God’s truth from Proverbs 8:13 "The fear of the LORD is
hatred of evil."
So what are
we to do with Mark Lowry’s advice? If
there were a “dislike” button, love demands that I hit it.
In my opinion, this is the best blog post that any of us has posted. I have linked to it on my facebook page. Thank you, Ritch, for a clear, succinct, and beautiful portrayal of why we must take NO prisoners and make no compromise when it comes to the awful sinfulness of sin. We have lost sight of what really loving someone means.
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