“Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: He preserveth the souls of His saints; He delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.” (Psalms 97:10)
Who are those who love the LORD? Jesus had a criteria. “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” (John 14:15) Further on He says, “He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.” (John 14:21) Further still He continues. “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:23) Many translations changed the word to obey. The word guard that Jesus used was not the word obey, although by implication it could mean that. What Jesus meant was guard. In other words, don’t let these words of mine escape you and be forgotten. Nearing the end of Jesus’ ministry we do see why Jesus said this to them. They did forget many things that Jesus said because they didn’t understand. It was not until Pentecost and the resurrection that they remembered and made the connection to many things that Jesus had said. “When therefore He was risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.” (John 2:22)
Jesus is very well aware of the weakness of our minds. We do forget what Jesus has said and done for us. We begin to doubt when adversity comes. He instituted the Lord’s supper for this very reason. At the Lord’s supper we intentionally remember the work of the cross. We remember the great sacrifice of Jesus for us, for our freedom from sin and for life everlasting. We remember that we are bought with a high price and that we are His. (Luke 22:19-20) For Jesus those who love the Lord are those who do not forget. The work of the cross is ever present in their minds. Their actions and words are guided by that remembrance at all times and especially in adversity.
In this Scripture of study in Psalms 97:10, the Lord has a command for those that love Him; hate evil. In the Hebrew this includes a myriad of things, not only bad actions, but also moral and natural evil. Strong’s Hebrew and Greek dictionary defines this as “adversity, affliction, bad, calamity, displeasure, distress, favouredness of man or thing, exceedingly great grief, harm, heavy, hurtful, ill favour, mischief, misery, noisome, not pleasant, sad, sore, sorrow, trouble, vex, wickedness, worse wretchedness, wrong.” This includes just about everything that is not good. These things are evil because they don’t come from the Father. They come from the enemy. While the Lord may allow some things to come into our lives for His purposes and our good, they are not from Him. And we should hate them because they are not from God. These things correct our theology, our thinking and our actions. They make us remember the goodness of our Lord and the importance of depending on and trusting Him.
No matter the evil that comes against us, it’s the Lord Who preserves our souls. That word preserve means to put a hedge round about. He is attentive to what comes against our soul (mind, will and emotions.) And He guards our souls. He defends and rescues us in the sense that He snatches us from the grasp of the enemy. It’s not our much praying and crying, but our trust and faith in what He has said and Who He is. (2Corinthians 5:7)
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