Reading through scripture is always revelatory but sometimes there are verses in scripture that will change the whole paradigm of your life. This happened to me recently. I was reading through the book of Proverbs and when I made it to chapter 6 about half way through I read “There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him:” Proverbs 6:16
The first time I read this verse I asked myself “wait God hates?” Then the wheels in my head started to turn. The reason this was such an eye opening verse is because personally I am very even keel. Hate was not an emotion I prescribed myself with often. As I was sitting thinking about all the times I hated things which were not many I heard God ask “ why would you not hate these things”?
This really hit me because as I pondered more it seemed like a complete no brainer. When you listen to the news and hear the terrible stories it would be completely rational to hate those things happening, or when the commercials come on T.V. and you see the companies asking for donations to the dog shelters it makes you think, “I hate that any creature would go through that”.
The more and more I thought a larger list of things I hated came to my head. As I read over this verse again I just could not believe I did not think about this righteous anger sooner.
Logically the next place I was led to was why? Why had I never thought about this? Why was I not on fire when learning of the travesties people go through? The reason was because the enemy and his army of evil had me suppressed. Sadly these were not thoughts I had but that is not of God’s nature. God hates evil and it’s okay for us to as well.
Each time we hear the next terrible story there is a certain level of desensitization we have gone through. Growing up when watching T.V. with my grandparents the classic ASPCA commercial would come on T.V. They would show all the animals malnourished, abused and abandoned. As commercials ran every 15 minutes on satellite T.V we would see this ad every time we made it to commercial break and by the 8th, 9th and 10th time I’d see that ad in a night it was not as striking as the first time.
Think about how many different ways we experience this concept now with social media. At any moment on any platform of social media you can see the worse of the worse. Then you scroll and see it again and again and again. As we continue to see these terrible things the desensitization that comes with this is something that is hard to conceptualize but massively impactful.
This is where the suppression of righteous anger comes into play. As the enemy and his army have manipulated the entertainment space we are progressively being shown more and more things that God would hate. As we see these circumstances over and over there is an internal lackluster mentality that comes into play. This is by design by the army of evil.
Think about if God did this with our sin. In James 2:10 We read “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” NKJV
So as we are living our day to day lives even one transgression of God’s law is enough to create separation from God. Now in our day to day lives we watch social media and see terrible things happen and instead of turning and fleeing from it we dive deeper, we spend more screen time and more hours consuming this content.
As this is happening like a rock slowly being eroded by water our minds are slowly and constantly being molded by an intentional attack to suppress your righteous anger.
Looking at proverbs 6:16-19 we do see that God hates. God hates Haughty eyes. He Hates a lying tongue. He hates hands that shed innocent blood. He hates a heart that devises wicked schemes. He hates feet that are quick to rush into evil. He hates a false witness who pours out lies and hates a person who sows discord.
It is our responsibility to look at these words of King Solomon and view this blue print that God gave us. We live in a time period where there has never been more opportunity for this suppression. This leads us to ask what do we righteously hate?
We are all given gifts from God and these gifts are for progressing His name and the glory of His kingdom. What better way to do that than fighting what we righteously hate? For some of us maybe we haven’t put a lot of thought into it. For others they experience hate but are you utilizing it as righteous anger or is it being manipulated by the enemy and his army? We need to have an internal analyzation to find where we stand.
We all have a role in this war against evil and you were specifically designed to play a part. Read Proverbs 6:16-19 and in that list find what you hate most. From there go into prayer and offer yourself to fighting that cause for the glory of our holy God.
16 There are six things the Lord hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
17 haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
18 a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
19 a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.
Proverbs 6:16-19
Chris Lucas