Morning, May 29, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“You… hated wickedness.” — Psalm 45:7

“Be angry, and yet do not sin.” There can hardly be any good in a man if he is not angry at sin; he who loves truth must hate every false way. How our Lord Jesus hated it when the temptation came! Three times it assailed him in different forms, but he always met it with, “Get behind me, Satan.” He hated it in others, and none the less fervently even though he showed his hate more often in tears of pity than in words of rebuke; yet what language could be more stern, more Elijah-like, than the words, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers.” He hated wickedness, indeed, 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 attractive garments, and imitates the language of holiness; but the precepts of Jesus, like his famous scourge of cords, chase it out of the temple, and will not tolerate it in the Church. So, too, in the heart where Jesus reigns, there is a great war between Christ and Belial! And when our Redeemer shall come to be our Judge, those thundering words, “Depart from Me, accursed ones,” which are, indeed, but a continuation of his life-teaching concerning sin, shall make plain his loathing of iniquity. As warm as is his love to sinners, his hatred of sin is hot; as perfect as his righteousness is, so complete shall be the destruction of every form of wickedness. O you glorious champion of right, and destroyer of wrong, for this cause has God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.