Speak the Truth

Zechariah

{8:16} These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates
{8:17} And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD.

These are the things you should do--

Speak everyone the truth to his neighbor. Speaking the truth should be easy enough right? Speaking it to everyone. Because who is our neighbor? Everyone. Speaking truth, not speaking any lies at all.


Execute judgment of truth and peace in your gates. Judgment with truth and peace as the standard where you dwell. Truth and peace.

Let no one think of evil in their hearts against his neighbor, against his fellowman.

Why do we do that? Why do we think evil again each other? Why?

We do it, tabloids are filled with evil things thought against others. Newspapers are full of it, our courts are full of it as well as our jails. Filled to overflowing our jails hold people who have thought evil against another. Our great financial institutions are run by those constantly thinking evil against others, money being the only important thing. So much evil thought against others it seems endless. And what about us as individuals? Our are thoughts loving towards those we live with, let alone the strangers that are our neighbors. What would happen if in spite of how we are treated we treat others with love? Seriously, what would happen?

We're not to even imagine evil in our hearts against our neighbors, meaning we're not even to think of any evil- let alone commit it.

We aren't to love any lies, not a single one.

Evil- realized and imagined against others as well as lying, God hates those things, HATES them.

When I was growing up I was taught to never say hate, that saying hate was very bad, very wrong. Of course that went hand in hand with hating others, not things. I was to never hate anyone, never say it, it would be the worse kind of thing to say especially to someone. I was to hate no one and this is a good thing, I'm not complaining. Hate is a strong word, there isn't another word that means so much to show how awful something is to you.

hate (hât) verb

1. a. To feel hostility or animosity toward. b. To detest.
2. To feel dislike or distaste for: hates washing dishes.

Hate is the opposite of love.

One extreme to the other, with many little areas in between leading one way or another, little dislike making its way toward full blown hate, a little liking heading towards full blown love.

God hates.

God loves.

God is love.

So how can love, hate?

Love can hate all that isn't loving, because all that would destroy love, is worth hating.

Think of it as a gardener of a beautiful garden who loves his garden so much, it's all beauty and all good without any evil in it at all. The love is pure and right, it is what life should have been, what life will be. Into the garden steals destroying insects ravaging the beauty. That which destroys is to be hated because it has ruined the beauty. Sin has done that, and it is right to hate sin, to hate evil. Good cannot embrace the evil deed and call it good because it ultimately destroys.

God, just like that gardener, only wants the beauty of life to remain and therefore has to hate invading evil that would destroy the beauty.

We must love each other even when we're hated. We must love the sinner but detest and hate the sin they commit, just as we have to hate the sin we commit. We have to seek forgiveness from the only one able to forgive sin, seek to walk in Him, to walk in the Spirit not after our sins.

Proverbs {8:13} The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.

John {3:20} For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. {3:21} But he that doeth truth
cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

Heb. {1:9} Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

1 John
{4:19} We love him, because he first loved us. {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? {4:21} And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

Zechariah
{8:16} These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates
{8:17} And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD.

Speak truth, live truth and peace, don't think evil of others, don't love lies, the Lord hates evil, hates lies.

If we could do all this through the power and love of Jesus, through His grace and mercy, through the Holy Spirit how wonderful it would be, how marvelous.

May God's love dwell in us, may we love all God loves and hate all God hates. Love all that is good and hate all that is evil. Have mercy on the sinner, but hate the sin committed, by others and in ourselves as Jesus would have us do.

By His grace, His love.

Amen.