Rats and evil

The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverse mouth I hate. – Proverbs 8v13

We read a lot about the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is when we reverence Him and His holiness. Fearing the Lord is to be in awe of Him and who He is.

Proverbs tells us that when we fear the Lord there are certain things that we are going to do. Here we read that the fear of the Lord is manifested in hating evil, pride, arrogance, and the evil way.

We could summarise it this way – those who fear the Lord are going to hate evil. If that is the case why do we so often cozy up to evil like it is something that we want to be close to, but not a part of?

I hate rats. I mean I really, really hate rats. I want nothing to do with them. I stay as far away from them as I can. I even hate dead rats. Many years ago I was working on a job site and was supposed to do some work in an area where there was a dead rat. I wouldn’t do it. I risked getting fired just because I would not go by the dead rat. I remember even further back when we had rats. I was literally terrified as I had to deal with it. I had no choice. I had a wife and two boys to protect – I had to do it. But, about 30 years later my heart still beats fast thinking about that fear.

I hate rats.

I say I fear the Lord. That means that I should hate sin.

I hate rats.

Do I hate sin the same way as I hate rats?

That’s quite a challenge isn’t it? If I really fear the Lord I should hate evil like I hate rats. I should have nothing to do with it. Instead of using my liberty to get as close to evil as I can, I should use my liberty to stay as far away from it as possible. Like that dead rat above, my hatred should drive me away.

That’s a tough question for me. Do I hate evil like I hate rats?