(Basics) 62. Hatred

We want to consider today something more about the most dangerous thing in our lives that's destroying us. Sin, much worse than sickness. We've been looking at that a little bit the last few studies, but we want to look at it a little more in depth today.

Today we want to look at another sin which Jesus spoke about, which is not considered a sin by a lot of people in the world, and even by a lot of believers. In our last three studies, if you remember, we looked at the sins that Jesus hated the most, and we saw three of them so far. Hypocrisy, pride, and selfishness.

Now, in the world, hypocrisy is not hated. Pride is not hated. Selfishness is not hated.

Everybody assumes that, yeah, that's not serious. A man pretends, so what? A man's a bit proud or selfish. Everybody's like that.

So long as you keep the Ten Commandments, the external, good life, you're okay. And unfortunately, a lot of believers think like that too. And therefore, the lives of many believers are only an external life.

There's nothing inward. They are saved only from the sins which are external. The thing that people could be saved from even under the law before Jesus came.

Under the law, people were saved from murder, adultery by the Ten Commandments, by the law, but they couldn't be saved from inward sin. The really serious sins that are destroying us. And then the first page of the New Testament we read, in Matthew 121, that Jesus means Savior who will save you, a person who will save you from your sins.

And so as I said before, if we don't understand what sin is, we'll never understand what Jesus has come to save us from. He has come to save us from sin. But what is sin? Now we see it a little more clearly.

Sin is pretending, being a hypocrite. He's come to save us from that. Sin is pride.

Jesus has come to save us from every type of pride. Physical pride, spiritual pride, intellectual pride. He's come to save us from selfishness, from thinking just about ourselves.

And today I want to speak about hatred. Now a lot of people do not think of hatred as a sin. The New Testament says that he who hates his brother is a murderer.

It's as serious as that. 1 John 3, verse 15. If you hate a person, it is equivalent to murdering him.

Maybe you don't have the opportunity to murder him. Maybe you're afraid that if you murder him, you'd get caught. You wouldn't mind somebody else killing him or his having some misfortune.

That's how you know whether you hate a person. Sometimes we may say, well, I don't hate anybody, really. But just ask yourself this.

Somebody who's done some harm to you or to your family. Maybe some relative who's cheated you. Maybe somebody who's done some real harm to you.

Maybe somebody who's spoiled your reputation or pushed you down in your job. Maybe your boss or landlord or someone who's done some harm to you. And you say, yeah, I've forgiven them.

But when you hear that some calamity happened to him, do you feel a little happy? If you feel happy, you know what that shows? That shows that you really hate him. Because you will never be happy when a calamity comes on your son or daughter, someone you love. You can never be happy when a calamity or accident or misfortune comes to somebody you love.

Why are you happy when it happens to that person whom you say you've forgiven? No, it really proves that you hate him. Or it could be another way. When you hear that something good happened to that man, that he got blessed in some way, or he got a promotion or something wonderful happened to him, and you feel a bit unhappy.

What does that show? That also shows that you really hate that person. Would you be unhappy if something good happened to your son or daughter? If your son came first in the class, would you be unhappy? You'd be unhappy if somebody else's son came first in the class. See, when we are unhappy at the blessing or good fortune or some happiness that comes to another person, it shows that you really don't love that person, you hate him.

So you see, hatred is pretty deeply entrenched in our hearts. And we fool ourselves by saying we don't have it. You say you are not bitter against a person, but the test is this.

Are you happy when something bad happens to him? Are you unhappy when something good happens to him? Then you are bitter. You might as well face up to it. This is like a scan that the Bible gives of your heart.

You know, in the hospitals nowadays they give you a scan to take a picture of what's inside your body which you cannot see. And when the doctor looks at the scan, he says, listen, there's something wrong with you. There's a tumor there, there's a cancer there.

And you say, well, I feel okay. I don't feel there's anything wrong. Well, maybe you don't feel it, but here's a scan.

There is a tumor. And you better remove it, whether you feel good or not. Otherwise it will kill you.

And I want to say to you, this is a scan of your heart's condition. When you are happy with somebody else's misfortune, the scan says you've got a tumor. You better remove it.

It's a tumor called bitterness, an unforgiving attitude. All these things are children of hatred. Hatred has got many children.

Bitterness, jealousy, anger. These are all children that come out of the mother called hatred and an unforgiving attitude. And the manifestation is, as I said, that you're happy when something bad happens to somebody else.

Or you're unhappy when something good happens to somebody else. And we must be sensitive. Jesus has come to save us from that.

You see, God is love. The Bible says that again and again. If God is love, tell me the answer to this question.

What is Satan? Even a child can answer that one. What's the opposite of love? Hatred. If God is full of love, what is Satan full of? Hatred.

So, when you've got hatred in your heart, and how do you know you have it? Well, these children are being born through you. Bitterness, jealousy, an unforgiving attitude. What does it prove? It proves that you're in fellowship with Satan, whether you know it or not.

And these things are so deeply entrenched in us that it's impossible for us to be saved from it unless Jesus saves us. Do you know that salvation from hatred is impossible? You can control your anger. You can control your bitterness and keep it inside.

But that's just like being constipated. You have all that rubbish inside, but it doesn't mean you're clean. What's use keeping the anger inside and not being cleansed? Or keeping the jealousy inside and say, well, I don't manifest it outwardly.

It's still there within. If the sickness is within, it'll still kill you, even if there's no external symptom. And who knows whether it's within you or not? You yourself.

Nobody else may know whether it's within or not, but you know very well whether it's there within you or not. And that's why we have to be extremely careful whenever we detect that we've got a wrong attitude towards somebody. And it's usually towards people who have harmed us in some way in the past.

Jesus spoke about that man who caught another person by the throat because he owed him a little bit of money, but he himself had been forgiven so much by the king. And he didn't cleanse that wrong attitude in his heart, and the result was he finally ended up in jail, having to pay back to the king all that large amount that he owed the king. And Jesus was teaching there, be careful about a little wrong attitude towards another person.

Do you have an attitude where you're trying to catch somebody by the throat because you feel he owes you something? Yeah, be careful there. It's not a question of cutting off the fruit. It's a question of making the tree good.

You know, Jesus said, make the tree good. Don't just cut off the fruit and put some good fruit hanging on the tree and fool people that you're a good person. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 15? He said, out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts.

Matthew 15, 18, the things that proceed from the heart. Verse 19, evil thoughts, murders. These are what defile the man.

You've got to cleanse your heart. In other words, the root of the disease, the root of bitterness, the root of jealousy, the root of an unforgiving attitude towards others. That's what needs to be cleansed if you want to be pure.

That's what Jesus has come to save us from. As I said, it's impossible to be free from it. But Jesus can do that.

He has come to do what is, humanly speaking, impossible. He has come to save us from the sin of hatred. First of all, we need to confess.

Lord, I thought I had forgiven that person. I haven't really. I thought I had no hatred in my heart against people.

But now I realize I do. And I really want to be free. I want to partake of God's nature, which is full of love.

I want to have my heart cleansed of every bit of hatred and all the children of hatred. Bitterness, jealousy, everything. And I want to have God's nature within, one of love, overflowing in goodness, desiring good, desiring the very best for other people.

There is a verse in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. They will be satisfied.

If you have a tremendous longing in your heart for the life of God within you, to have love and to be completely free from all hatred, you'll find that God answers your prayer. It depends on your longing. It's not enough just to make a weak prayer, Lord, I got a bit convicted today by what you said.

I know it's not so good, my attitude towards that person. That's not enough. You won't be free.

You'll be free only if you have a tremendous longing to be free. Oh God, this is an evil thing. Just think if you discovered you had AIDS or leprosy, how you would long to be free.

You'd go from one doctor to another, one hospital to another, desperate to be free. When you have that type of desperation to be free from this sin of hatred and all its manifestations, Jesus will set you free.