Love & Hatred Prov. 10:12 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

This proverb is about love & hatred and is a big help to us as Christians, because it reminds us of the necessity to love one another.  It also reminds us of the things we do when deep down we hate somebody.  Let’s deal with the negative first and then we’ll look at the positive.

Hatred stirreth up strifes

That’s what we used to do when we were lost – (Titus 3:3)  For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another – now that we are saved we have the fruit of the Spirit which includes love – a pastor friend led a very hateful woman to the Lord and she called all of her family to the hospital to apologize and to testify to each one of them of her salvation in Jesus Christ – and then she died.

Haters are fools – Don’t think you are faking anybody (Prov 10:18)  He that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a slander, is a fool.

Haters are deceivers – because you are going to pretend that you don’t hate them – Prov 26:24  He that hateth dissembleth with his lips, and layeth up deceit within him; Prov 26:25  When he speaketh fair, believe him not: for there are seven abominations in his heart. (Prov 26:26)  Whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be showed before the whole congregation. (Prov 26:28)  A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it; and a flattering mouth worketh ruin.

Haters are liars – because you will say and believe that you love God and you don’t – (1 John 4:20)  If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

Haters are losers – at the Judgment Seat of Christ – Gal 5:20  Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Gal 5:21  Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

If you are hated by someone else, then follow (Mat 5:44)  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

Love covereth all sins

Keep their sins to yourself – (Prov 17:9)  He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.

If you must talk do it face to face with the person – Prov 27:5  Open rebuke is better than secret love.  Prov 27:6  Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

Live in Love (1 John 3:11)  For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

Serve in Love (1 John 3:18)  My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. (Gal 5:13)  For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

Grow in Love – (1 Thes 3:12)  And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you:

Illustration of a Nazi young man who killed a Christian man’s son and then was adopted by that Christian man after the war.

Conclusion: Be prepared to live with the consequences of what you do now in eternity – in eternity you will not be able to fix it – when you die your loving and hating are done but others live with the memories and you live with the consequences – (Eccl 9:6)  Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.