April 8

Apr 8 - Today from Proverbs 8 we look at verse 13
"To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech."

Chapter 8 utilizes the literary form of personifying an impersonal object. In this chapter that object is wisdom, and it is wisdom speaking in this verse.
As a child, and even for a rather significant portion of my adult life, I was a little apprehensive whenever I heard the term "Fear the Lord." Mixed up somewhere in that term I thought that God was someone I needed to be afraid of. It was only after I entered into a personal relationship with Him through accepting His offer of forgiveness and salvation through Jesus, that all of my apprehension was dispelled. No longer being afraid of God, I was now curious what His Word meant when it exhorts us to 'fear the Lord'. Well, this verse sheds lots of light on the subject.
"To fear the Lord is to hate evil." This is a fundamental attribute of wisdom. What exactly is evil? In the original Hebrew, the primary root of the word means to spoil, and is expanded to mean by breaking to pieces. That gives us a pretty good picture of what evil is (and does)? In our language evil means morally wrong. Unfortunately, in our modern culture we seem to have great difficulty in defining what is moral. Our modern dictionary defines evil as harmful or injurious. Evil, then, is not loving our neighbor. Evil is not a category on the scale of things that cause harm. Evil is the scale. Evil is anything that causes harm, misfortune, suffering or destruction in the life of a fellow human, on any level, whether intentional or unintentional. To fear the Lord is to hate evil -- particularly the evil that resides in our own hearts.
Wisdom goes on to say, "I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech." That hits close to home. To fear the Lord means we are to get serious about being honest with ourselves and start agreeing with God about the evil that resides in our heart. The literal translation of the Greek word for confess in the New Testament means to agree with God. God wants you to live in His presence. He wants to walk with you each day. But evil cannot abide in His presence. If we deceive ourselves and try to explain away the evil that abides in our heart, we severely limit our relationship and our walk with Him. We read in 1 John 1:8, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." Jesus chose the cross so that there is a place where we can take the evil in our hearts, confess it before Him, and be rid of it. Because we often have a hard time forgiving others and/or ourselves, we can tend to think that God has a hard time forgiving as well. To assure us, he gives us this promise in 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (If you have not yet memorized this verse, I encourage you to do so today.)
The evidence of our sincerity in confessing is our repentance. The Greek term to repent literally means to turn away -- turning away from evil behavior and turning back to God. In any area where we are operating in pride, arrogance, evil behavior or perverse speech, we are moving away from our relationship with God. Confession is the first step in restoring that relationship. Repentance is the second. Paul preaches in Acts 17:30, "In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent." Jesus Christ has come, and so has the revelation of God's saving grace. There is no longer any excuse. God provided the pardon through the shed blood of His own Son. He sent the Spirit of grace to give us the understanding and the strength to turn. He commands us to repent because He loves us and wants us to enjoy a vital relationship with Himself. Now instead of being afraid of God and walking away from Him, we can fear God and run to Him. He waits with open and loving arms when we simply trust Him and yield to His way of taking care of things.
Wisdom fears God and hates evil.