Lovers and Haters, the Good and the Evil
by Tara Lang Chapman
Tishri 5771 Hebrew Calendar/October 2010 Roman Calendar
Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the ETERNAL God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph (Amos 5:15).
There are two basic kinds of persons: lovers and haters. These are also known as good and evil. It may be that all evil persons (haters) have done something good, and it is for certain that all good, excepting the Lord Jesus Christ, have done evil things or have wrongfully hated. However, there are two kinds of hearts: one that loves and wants to basically do what is right and one that hates and wants to basically do what is wrong.
I posted a public message that criticized another's comment that he wished "all the haters" to have a good night. I said that I wished the lovers to have a good night and for the haters to have a bad night, for I hate haters. My comment offended some. The main reason this is so is because it appeared to them that I was a "hater" by hating evil. The confusion comes from the doctrine people have formed based on Matthew 5:43-46, which records the Lord as saying:
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy, but I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
When I was a child, my mother always taught me to be nice to those who didn't like me or did me wrongly, because it would "burn them up," that it would be a much more effective way to get back at them and that they would have no valid reason to treat me or feel about me the way they did. Her advice was so right, and later in life I learned that Solomon wrote of this same wise principle: If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his had, and the ETERNAL shall reward thee.
My parents also taught me, though, that if someone was trying to rape me, kidnap me, or kill me that I should aim to kill that person or at least escape to turn them into the authorities, and the authorities should put to death such an individual. My parents taught me BALANCE. Jesus didn't mean that we should let evil people--haters--just run all over us. He wasn't teaching an extreme doctrine of tolerance. He was teaching mercy when it's appropriate. A good father will surely not stand by to let his child be murdered by an evil man, but on the other hand, a good father will lead a child to be good to enemies…but not enemies of that degree.
I've lived by these principles, and I find them to be sound doctrine. However, I have not been led away into error like many who take one scripture verse or one passage and then twist it to mean whatever they like, without considering the scriptures as a whole.
I posted a video of a deeply wicked man--a real hater--who, after boasting of his evil deeds such as killing, stealing, gang-banging, drug-abusing, and whore-mongering, entered the vehicle-lined street with a crow bar, metal pipe, or some other such object, as I can't quite remember, and he started busting up an occupied car. The driver could not get away. This is the sort of guy who needs a bullet in his head, and I publicly said as much.
Recently a so-called "neighbor" (as he was physically, but spiritually he was not) moved on the property adjoining us. My husband was hunting on our property and on the adjoining property, as he'd had permission and did not yet know it had sold, and the guy, without any questions, rained gunfire toward my husband and his friend. My husband was greatly angered, to say the least. He did go talk to the guy, and he forgave, and he thought all was fine, so we moved on with our lives. A few weeks later we got a letter in the mail from an attorney the guy hired and threats that my husband needed to move his deer stand off of "his" property. We then discovered that the man had trespassed onto our property and vandalized many trees with gaudy purple paint. This was after he made it clear to my husband that if he ever trespassed again that he'd sue him for all he had and that we'd live in a cardboard box. What a jerk! So I had to take time out to gather all our evidence, and I had to write a letter back to the attorney. I talked my husband into being cool and letting God deal with the man. I wrote in the letter that we were willing to forgive, but enough was enough and that we'd better have no more problems out of him. The guy was too proud to ever come and apologize. He did end up building a fence on the proper property line. He'd claimed over 3.5 acres of our land before. I prayed that he'd leave, and he resold the property, and it sold very quickly, much more quickly than it had the previous time. What a blessing for that man to be out of our hair!
Now, we had every right to sue the guy for everything he had, after all that he'd done. The guy was nothing short of a lunatic. We chose to be forgiving, but he never even apologized. Have I hoped evil for him in my heart or prayed for evil to come his way? First and foremost, I have prayed that he would repent down the road, feel bad for all that he did, and make a lasting change in his life. However, if he does not, then yes I have prayed that God would deal with him as HE sees fit, as He knows the guy far better than we. The guy may very well be causing trouble for someone else right now, and I hope, above all, that that's not the case. As I said, it's preferable that the man has changed, especially in seeing the kind way we treated him, despite all that he did toward us. However, some do not change and only want to do evil toward others. It is better for such people to be taken so that others do not have to suffer.
Does the bible teach against the death penalty? NO! It teaches that certain things deserve death. Was that just under the old covenant, and now we are to show grace to everyone? NO! God has always shown grace to those who were deserving, who repented of their sin and showed remorse. David's adultery with Bathsheba is one such example. Adultery calls for the death penalty, and yet he repented, and he was shown grace. God still metes out punishment, too, to those who are deserving of it. There is a prerequisite to receiving grace, and it has always been this way. One must repent!
What if the Samaritan portrayed in Jesus' parable, who helped the beaten man, showed up shortly before, when the man was being beat up? Would it be loving for the man to stand around and wait until the bad guy were finished pounding the guy, or would it be more loving to take a branch or other weapon and give the guys blows to their heads? It must be understood that in order to SHOW LOVE, sometimes that means SHOWING HATE. We are to LOVE the good, and HATE the evil. Since God is the judge of the heart, we must let Him work with people's hearts, but if a person is at the point of acting out physical transgressions that are hurtful to others, showing love to them then is hating those who are victims to them.
King David's initial reaction to his son Absalom's death was strong grief, and Joab, David's general, was angered at him. Absalom had usurped David's authority and had lifted himself up as king, and he tried to kill his father David. David's men risked their lives to protect David from Absalom. Joab was able to kill Absalom. David cried in grief, and Joab said to him: In that thou lovest thine enemies, and hatest thy friends. For thou hast declared this day, that thou regardest neither princes nor servants: for this day I perceive, that if Absalom had lived, and all we had died this day, then it had pleased thee well (2 Sam. 19:6).
Did you catch that? In that you love your enemies, you hate your friends. Do you understand why? When you have some outrageous hater physically unleashing his hate upon everyone, and you show love to the person, you let him hurt the innocent! This has been happening more and more and more in this nation of the United States. Evil people who have shown no repentance, are being let go free! What then happens? The hater goes and attacks again! Whether it be murder or child sexual assault or something else, the unrepentant person will do it again and again, and we are letting this happen by loving such haters!
Concerning evil children, I will copy here what I've written elsewhere:
"Now, when a person is evil and unrepentant, the person's parent(s) will naturally be deeply grieved, very sorrowful, full of weeping and sadness, but even so will want the child to be put to death because of the evil he has done to others and will continue to do if not killed. I love my children very much, but I hate evil. I would be DEEPLY grieved if I had a child turn out to be a glutton and drunkard, a murderer, a rapist, or any other wicked person; but I would want the evil to be dealt with. If my child grew up and did great evil to himself and others, I'd want him to be put to death. I have a mind of love but also of justice. That grown child of mine would be part of the problem in this wicked society."
Amos 5:15 says, Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the ETERNAL God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.
When we are unreasonable with our love toward enemies, God is not gracious with us. We will reap punishment, because in loving the enemies, we are hating our friends/neighbors.
And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment? Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones (Micah 3:1-2).
Our nation's leaders should know judgment/justice. But rather than release the innocent and show mercy to those repentant, our judges hate the good and innocent and love the evil haters. They receive bribes to pervert justice (Deut. 16:19; Prov. 17:23).
Proverbs 29:27 says, An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous; And he that is upright in the way is an abomination to the wicked.
This is EXACTLY what I said, which greatly offended some. I love lovers and hate haters. If I do not hate those who have no love in their hearts for other human beings, then I am not upright. We should want evil to be put away from among us. Those who are now haters but who repent are then no longer haters, but those who are unrepentant haters do not belong among us!
Do not I hate them, O ETERNAL, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? (Psa. 139:21) This was written by David, who was elected to reign in the top position (under Christ) over the twelve tribes of Israel in the soon-coming Kingdom of God.
Yes, one who is close to God, who knows Him well personally, understands well that in order to show TRUE LOVE, he or she must HATE EVIL. There are some persons who ARE evil. They are beyond loving. God does not will anyone to perish in sin (2 Pet. 3:9), and those who love Him feel the same way. Just as I said of our ex-neighbor earlier, REPENTANCE is preferred, but one cannot be made to repent and love. And if a person chooses to HATE, a righteous one cannot help but hate that person. Ezekiel 18 is a great chapter to study now. God and those who love Him plead with sinners to REPENT, turn from their wicked ways, their ways of hate, so that they can LIVE.
It needs to be understood what a hater is and why no one should give encouragement to haters. Haters are those who delight in wickedness. Just as cold does not exist, but rather it is a relative term to mean a lack of heat, and the "colder" something is means that the less heat it has; and just as "dark" is not a thing of its own, but it's a lack of light; so hate is a relative term meaning a lack of love.
There are those who were not taught love as a child, and they can learn love as an adult by being shown love. However, there are some, regardless of whether they were shown love or not, who choose to hate. When one is beyond changing and is harming others, he or she should be shown no love. They do not want it, and it should not be forced upon them. Love should be shown, however, to those who are being hurt by the haters.
Love is both an action that is commanded, and it is a feeling. I write more about this in my article "God Does Know our Hearts" (http://www.endtimecog.net/articles/hearts.html). I have discovered that showing love to another person over a period of time will cause love feelings to emerge for the person, because as you love them, they respond to it and change. So LOVE others, not just those for whom you "FEEL" love. But, in loving, we must also know what NOT to love, and we must not love what God does not love, namely evil.
There are those who would demand to know which enemies to love and which ones not to love, but if that was not made clear to them in this article, they are carnal. A carnal person demands a list of burdensome do's and do not's, because they are not led by the spirit. With a list of do's and don't's, we lose liberty. If you are hating good by loving evil, then you are erring. That is all one needs to consider.
There are many haters in our nation who are leading the innocent astray and hurting them in various ways. We need to stop loving the haters, stop allowing it to go on unpunished, and our problems would vanish.