You love righteousness and hate
wickedness. By Charles Simeon. You love righteousness
and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has
set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil
of joy. Psalm 45.7 In this verse, the distinctive character of
the true believer is most fitly drawn. There are many unbelievers
whose external characters are unimpeachable. They abstain from
open iniquity, and they may be kind and do many charitable things. But the distinctive mark of the
true believer is that he loves righteousness and hates iniquity. He looks upon sin as the worst
enemy of his soul. Not contented with suppressing
the outward acts of sin, he strives to mortify its inward motions.
The existence of sin within him is his affliction, his burden,
and his grief. He abhors his sin. He loathes
himself on account of his sin. He often cries with anguish of
heart, Oh, what a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from
this body of death? Romans chapter 7, verse 24. As
for righteousness, he considers it as the health and felicity
of his soul. It is the very element in which he desires to live.
Were he possessed of holiness in ever so high a degree, he
would not be satisfied, as long as there were any measure of
it which he had not attained. He would be as holy as God is
holy, and as perfect as God is perfect. We repeat it, that this
is the distinctive character of a true believer. Unbelievers,
whatever their conduct may be, have no real hatred of secret
sin and no sincere delight in the secret exercises of genuine
piety. But in the believer, these dispositions
radically and abidingly exist. How vain are the hopes of heaven
by those who are not lovers of righteousness and haters of iniquity.
Holiness and happiness are inseparable. It is in vain to hope for the
oil of joy if we are not lovers of righteousness and haters of
iniquity. Those who conform to the world's
standard of goodness may be applauded by other worldlings, but God
will not ratify their approval. The precepts of the gospel are
the infallible and only rule of Christian duty. They were
exhibited in all their perfection by our blessed Lord, whose own
life was a commentary on them. For the Lord is righteous, He
loves justice. Upright men will see His face.
Psalm 11, verse 7. This is how we know who the children
of God are and who the children of the devil are. Anyone who
does not practice righteousness is not a child of God. Nor is
anyone who does not love his brother. 1 John chapter 3 verse
10.