to love God and hate sin

I am reading More Precious than Gold by Sam Storms. It’s a book of meditations on the Psalms. This weekend what I read focused on the imprecation Psalms, those are the ones where David shows his anger at sinners and desire for God to “sic ‘em.”

We as Christians struggle with the anger in these Psalms, it seems to go against the message of the NT to love our enemies, turn the cheek, etc. And yet Jesus showed real anger at the Pharisee’s, I’m sure when He was welding the whip in the temple He was a bit fierce about it.

How does this all fit together?

Peter C. Craigie says, of these Psalms,:
“these passages are the real and natural reactions to the experience of evil and pain and thought the sentiments are in themselves evil, they are a part of the life of the soul which is bared before God in worship and prayer.”
“The psalmist may hate his oppressor; God hates the oppression. Thus the words of the psalmist are often natural and spontaneous, not always pure and good.”
He sums up by saying, “ these Psalms are not the oracles of God.” I would add that they are the true cry of the soul.

Same points out that, “They are calculate petitions, not spontaneous explosions of a bad temper. Certainly there are examples in Old Testament history and prose narrative of actions and attitudes that are sinful and not to be emulated. But the Psalms are expressions of public worship to be modeled.”

Sam made a statement that has challenged me and given me much to ponder:
“Imprecations are expressions provoked by the horror or sin. David prayed this way because of his deep sensitivity to the ugliness of evil. Perhaps the chief reason why he wasn’t bothered by prayers of imprecation, and we are, is that he was bothered by sin, and we aren’t! It is frightening to think that we can stand in the presence of evil and not be moved to pray as David did.”

I am pleased to say that the next meditation deals with what it means to delight yourself in the Lord, which is all part of this amazing thing of loving God and hating sin.