I am not easily offended by rough language or four letter words, unless they are used around children. I’m sure Jesus was not repelled by the “salty” language of the four commercial fishermen and tax collector he chose as disciples. However, there are two four letter words that I always find offensive; hate and evil. They both came to my attention again when the two mass shootings occurred so close together in El Paso and Dayton recently. There was a lot of chatter on Face Book about gun control and mental illness. I saw one post quoting a black activist, “You tired of the race card? We tired of the mental illness card.” I could not restrain myself. I commented, “OK. I’ll play the EVIL card instead. It isn’t political. The shooter in Dayton was a socialist supporter of Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders – that shooting was not their fault. The shooter in El Paso was a supporter of President Donald Trump – that shooting was not his fault. It certainly wasn’t the guns’ fault. The fault lies with hate and evil in the heart of those two men that drove them to take the lives of innocent people. It is the same evil that is in the heart of an abortionist who convinces a mother that it is not only OK to kill her baby, but it is her right to do so, even as the baby struggles to leave her body.”
I hope you will permit me to trigger another Google search. One of my favorite old time radio dramas began with, “What evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!” Of course, it is actually God who sees the contents of our hearts – good or evil. It is my experience that evil is nearly always preceded by hate. We are not born with hatred in our heart for an individual or group of people – it is learned from someone who is influential in our life. Once hate is well established, it opens the door to evil thoughts and actions.
Love is my favorite four letter word. It is the antidote for that hate/evil process. I have mentioned before that love is not the opposite of hate. On the love scale, there is love (caring completely) at one end and indifference (not caring at all) at the other end. Hate has its own scale with hate (completely detesting) at one end and indifference at the other end. We must choose between love and hate, because they do not coexist in our mind or heart. I have heard people say they have a love/hate relationship with someone. That would last only a short time until one of those feelings drives out the other.
God is love (1 John 4:16), so once He is in our heart and mind there is no room for hate or evil. One of my favorite quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is, “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” As Christians, love is our choice and it will keep hate and evil on the outside looking in.