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There is a hatred we have to endure, and there is also a hatred which we have to cherish. The question of any difficulty is - What is the feeling we should cultivate in our hearts towards the guilty? We may glance at -

I. THE HATRED OF US BY THE WICKED. "He that is upright in the way is abomination to the wicked."

1. This is a well-verified fact, attested by Scripture, by history, by observation, probably by experience.

2. Its explanation is at hand.

(1) Wicked men are utterly out of sympathy with the righteous. Their tastes, inclinations, habits, are all at variance with those of the good and pure.

(2) The upright are obliged to condemn them, either in private or in public.

(3) The life of the one is a standing reflection upon the conduct of the other.

3. There is one right way to meet it; viz.

(1) to endure it as Jesus Christ endured it (Hebrews 12:3; 1 Peter 2:23), and as seeing the invisible but present and approving Lord (Hebrews 11:27);

(2) to make an honest effort to remove it by winning those who indulge it. But the more difficult question is how we are to bear ourselves toward those whose conduct we reprobate, whose character we detest, whose persons we are not willing to admit into our homes. How shall we order -

II. OUR HATRED OF THE WICKED? That there is a very strong feeling against the wrong doer in the minds of the holy is obvious enough. It is a fact that "an unjust man is an abomination to the just." "Do not I hate them that hate thee?... I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies," said David (Psalm 139:21, 22). Jesus Christ "looked round about on them with anger" (Mark 3:5). God is "angry with the wicked every day" (Psalm 7:11). He "hateth all the workers of iniquity" (Psalm 5:5). Our feeling, therefore, is the reflection of that which is in the heart of the Holy One himself. Of what elements should it be composed?

1. One element that should be absent. There should be no trace of personal ill will, of a desire for the suffering of the man himself; for the soul of the sinful we should wish well, and we fall into a mistake, if not into a sin, when we allow ourselves to find a pleasure in witnessing or in dwelling upon the humiliation or the sorrow of the wicked. We ought only to wish for that as a means of their purification and recovery.

2. The elements that should be present.

(1) Pure resentment, such as God feels, such as our Lord felt when he lived amongst us (see Matthew 23), - a feeling of strong reprobation, which we are obliged to direct against them as the doers of unrighteousness.

(2) Faithful but measured condemnation. There is, in this view, a time to speak as well as a time to keep silence; and both publicly and privately it behoves us to blame the blameworthy, cud even to denounce the shamefully unjust or cruel. But here we are bound to take care that we are well acquainted with the matter on which we speak, and that our judgment is an impartial one.

(3) Fearless and unflinching opposition. We must actively and steadfastly oppose ourselves to the iniquitous, and do our best to bring their purposes to the ground.

(4) Sincere and practical compassion. With all this that is adverse, we may and should conjoin such pity as our Divine Saviour has felt for ourselves, and such honest and earnest endeavour to win them to the truth and to the practice of righteousness as he put forth when he came to redeem us from sin and to raise us to the likeness and restore us to the kingdom of God. - C.

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KJV: An unjust man is an abomination to the just: and he that is upright in the way is abomination to the wicked.

WEB: A dishonest man detests the righteous, and the upright in their ways detest the wicked.