Should We Despise the Vile — or Love Them?
00:00:00.000 | Good Monday morning to you.
00:00:05.720 | Maybe you're listening on your way to class or to work.
00:00:09.360 | Mondays for many of us is a day to reenter the complexities of life as God's redeemed
00:00:15.120 | children living out our faith in a world that is hostile to our Heavenly Father.
00:00:21.280 | And that raises questions like whether the world should like us or whether the world
00:00:26.600 | should hate us.
00:00:28.280 | Which result shows us to be most faithful to our God?
00:00:31.960 | It's a huge question, not one for today, it's a question for another day.
00:00:36.480 | We'll get to it in two Fridays.
00:00:37.920 | Today's question, Pastor John, is about the sinfully vile in this world.
00:00:42.980 | Should we despise them or should we love them?
00:00:45.960 | Here's the question.
00:00:47.620 | My name is Parker, I'm 14.
00:00:50.200 | Psalm 15, verse 4 says, speaking of a blameless man, that in their eyes a vile person is despised.
00:00:58.820 | How can we both despise the vile and yet also love our enemies?
00:01:03.480 | And the same question comes from a listener named Peter.
00:01:05.760 | Hello to you, Pastor John.
00:01:06.760 | David says in Psalm 15, verses 1, 2, and 4, "Oh Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?
00:01:14.580 | Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
00:01:17.080 | He who walks blamelessly and does what is right, in whose eyes a vile person is despised."
00:01:27.480 | But Jesus says in Matthew 5, verse 44, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute
00:01:33.080 | you."
00:01:34.560 | These categories of one, vile people, and two, enemies and persecutors, are not entirely
00:01:41.440 | overlapping, but I think it's safe to say that there's at least some overlap between
00:01:44.960 | them.
00:01:45.960 | I think David had his enemies in mind in Psalm 15 when he was talking about the vile people.
00:01:50.720 | Do you agree?
00:01:51.720 | And if you do, how are we to simultaneously despise and love the sinfully vile?
00:01:58.720 | The short answer is that it is indeed possible to love someone you despise.
00:02:07.280 | In fact, it is not just possible but necessary, because the Psalm says that one of the marks
00:02:18.540 | of the person who dwells with God, enjoys God's fellowship, is that in his eyes a vile
00:02:26.480 | person is despised.
00:02:28.040 | That's a mark of being welcomed into God's favor.
00:02:32.840 | In fact, we don't even need to jump from the Psalm to Jesus in order to see what love requires
00:02:42.040 | toward a vile person.
00:02:43.520 | Let me read Psalm 15, because the whole thing is remarkable in this regard, and I'll just
00:02:51.560 | pause and mark the key parts as we go along.
00:02:55.000 | "O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?"
00:03:00.080 | That's the question.
00:03:01.080 | Who shall enjoy fellowship with God?
00:03:03.040 | "Who shall dwell on your holy hill?"
00:03:06.160 | In other words, what are the marks of a person who can enjoy the presence and the fellowship
00:03:14.200 | of God?
00:03:15.200 | And here comes the answer.
00:03:17.360 | Verse 2, "He who walks blamelessly and does what is right."
00:03:24.320 | So he's not free.
00:03:25.600 | This person who qualifies to be with God is not free to call just anything right.
00:03:31.260 | He does what is right, namely what God calls right.
00:03:35.120 | Now, continuing, "And he speaks truth in his heart," verse 3, "who does not slander with
00:03:44.280 | his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor."
00:03:50.480 | Now that's very crucial, because it comes just before the word about despising.
00:03:58.920 | Paul said in Romans 13.10, "Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling
00:04:06.560 | of the law."
00:04:08.560 | So the psalmist is saying, when he says, "does no evil to his neighbor," I must love my
00:04:16.240 | neighbor.
00:04:17.240 | I may not wrong him.
00:04:21.440 | And then the text continues, "Nor takes up a reproach against his friend," verse 4, "in
00:04:28.400 | whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord, who swears
00:04:36.760 | to his own hurt and does not change."
00:04:39.840 | That means he keeps his promises even when it hurts him.
00:04:43.600 | "Who does not put out his money at interest," which means he doesn't take advantage of anyone
00:04:50.040 | financially, "and does not take a bribe against the innocent," so he won't let himself be
00:04:57.600 | lured by money to treat anyone unjustly.
00:05:01.560 | And then, "He who does these things shall never be moved," end of Psalm.
00:05:07.200 | So what do we make of this?
00:05:08.480 | Here's David, a psalm of David, "The Man After God's Own Heart," 1 Samuel 13, 14, and in
00:05:17.360 | it he says that the person who can dwell with God and enjoy God's fellowship, one, does
00:05:24.160 | what is right, two, does not slander anyone, three, does no evil to his neighbor, four,
00:05:32.840 | doesn't charge interest to gouge anyone, five, doesn't let bribery, pervert justice in his
00:05:38.160 | hands.
00:05:39.160 | In other words, this is not a careless moment for David in which he's on some kind of hate
00:05:43.760 | tirade against evil doers.
00:05:46.920 | This is a thoughtful listing of beautiful traits of the person God delights to have
00:05:54.640 | near him.
00:05:56.600 | And right after saying, "He does no evil to his neighbor," one phrase later he says, "In
00:06:05.680 | this godly man's eyes, a vile person is despised, and one who fears the Lord is honored."
00:06:13.640 | So, if we take Paul's definition of love from Romans 13, 10, "Love does no wrong to a neighbor,"
00:06:24.120 | then what David is saying is the man whom God welcomes loves his neighbor and despises
00:06:33.960 | him if he's vile.
00:06:37.080 | Notice the two halves of verse 4.
00:06:39.680 | We call this kind of poetic parallelism antithetical.
00:06:43.920 | That means the two halves express opposites.
00:06:47.120 | So here's what he says in verse 4.
00:06:49.200 | "In whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors," which is the opposite of
00:07:00.040 | despised, "those who fear the Lord," which is the opposite of vile.
00:07:06.760 | What David is drawing attention to in the godly person's heart is not how they act,
00:07:16.680 | not how they treat people.
00:07:18.840 | That's not the point of verse 4.
00:07:20.520 | That's the point of verse 3.
00:07:22.520 | You do no wrong to a neighbor.
00:07:24.480 | But what they feel about the character of a person, what they admire in their hearts
00:07:32.560 | or don't admire, what they praise, glorify, honor, the godly person does not glorify the
00:07:43.080 | vile person.
00:07:46.080 | He glorifies the one who fears the Lord.
00:07:48.420 | The godly person does not admire or venerate or want to be like the vile person.
00:07:56.680 | He admires, he wants to be near and be like the person who fears the Lord.
00:08:03.320 | In other words, to despise in Psalm 15 does not mean you desire to destroy a person or
00:08:11.920 | to see a person come to ruin.
00:08:14.560 | To despise means you regard the person's character, not their body, their character as ugly, dishonorable,
00:08:24.600 | shameful, disgraceful, unworthy of praise.
00:08:29.400 | There are people like that, and it would be ungodly not to despise them.
00:08:36.160 | And David is saying, if you have the kind of heart that enjoys being around vile people
00:08:43.440 | who don't fear God, if you admire and esteem vile people, you're not fit for the presence
00:08:50.660 | of God.
00:08:51.660 | That's what he's saying.
00:08:53.720 | What David meant and what Jesus meant by loving our neighbor is not that we should admire
00:09:01.160 | their wickedness.
00:09:03.640 | We should despise their wickedness.
00:09:06.000 | And I know there's someone who's saying, "You shouldn't say it like that.
00:09:10.920 | If you think I should be saying here, 'Despise the sin and not the sinner,'" that's what
00:09:16.760 | some of you are thinking.
00:09:18.040 | That would be true if despising meant feeling desires for their ruin.
00:09:24.040 | But the problem with that traditional way of expressing love, love for the sinner, not
00:09:29.240 | the sin, is that it is precisely the person who is vile.
00:09:34.600 | That's what it says.
00:09:37.140 | And there are vile people.
00:09:39.040 | The vileness is not an alien intruder into a good person.
00:09:44.840 | Sin is not the only thing that's vile.
00:09:47.420 | People are vile.
00:09:49.460 | People produce sin.
00:09:50.960 | Sins don't produce people.
00:09:53.480 | Evil comes from the heart, Jesus said.
00:09:55.720 | It doesn't come from outside and contaminate the innocent heart.
00:10:00.040 | It's people who will be judged for being vile, not just their vileness.
00:10:05.040 | Vileness doesn't go to hell, people go to hell.
00:10:09.640 | So let me say it again.
00:10:10.840 | What David meant and what Jesus meant by loving our neighbor is not that we admire their wickedness.
00:10:18.720 | We should despise their wickedness, and that includes despising the kind of person that
00:10:23.840 | loves and does wickedness.
00:10:26.960 | And we should love them and be willing to lay down our lives for them.
00:10:34.840 | Jesus prayed on the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing."
00:10:42.400 | Luke 23, 34.
00:10:45.000 | He was praying for people whom just days before he had said were fools, whitewashed tombs,
00:10:55.840 | full of wickedness and greed, and who on Pentecost, 50 days later, would be saved.
00:11:05.280 | His prayer would be answered.
00:11:06.960 | 3,000 came to Jesus, including many priests.
00:11:12.320 | Now, besides Jesus himself, the clearest example in the New Testament of loving someone we
00:11:21.440 | despise is the parable of the Good Samaritan.
00:11:26.920 | Jews and Samaritans are chosen in this parable because they despised each other.
00:11:32.240 | Look at John 4, 9 and numerous other texts.
00:11:37.400 | And so Jesus illustrated what neighbor love involves by portraying a Samaritan stopping
00:11:46.480 | to help a wounded Jew.
00:11:50.240 | There's not a word in this parable about his liking him or admiring him as a Jew, only
00:11:59.840 | that he had compassion on him in his misery and took practical steps to relieve his suffering.
00:12:08.960 | So my answer to Parker and Peter's question is that it is a godly trait to feel that vileness
00:12:19.740 | is repulsive and despicable.
00:12:23.580 | To admire it would be sin.
00:12:27.220 | Admiration belongs to the fear of the Lord.
00:12:31.720 | Despising belongs to despicable vileness.
00:12:35.880 | But the radical call on our lives as Christians is to love even those we despise and join
00:12:45.040 | Jesus in saying, "Father, forgive them.
00:12:48.280 | They don't know what they're doing."
00:12:51.080 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:12:55.080 | And thank you, Peter and Parker, for the questions.
00:12:57.720 | I know some of you are wondering if Peter and Parker are real names.
00:13:00.960 | Your spidey sense is up.
00:13:02.200 | But yes, two different listeners.
00:13:03.720 | I just confirmed and reconfirmed the emails.
00:13:06.320 | Thank you for joining us today.
00:13:08.360 | Ask a question of your own.
00:13:09.400 | Search our growing archive or subscribe to the podcast all at askpastorjohn.com.
00:13:16.160 | We're talking about how to win the war against our fears and insecurities next time.
00:13:21.600 | I'm your host Tony Rehnke.
00:13:23.440 | We'll see you on Wednesday.
00:13:24.160 | [END]
00:13:26.160 | 1. What is the meaning of "the fear of the Lord"?
00:13:28.160 | 2. What is the meaning of "the fear of the Lord"?
00:13:30.160 | [BLANK_AUDIO]