Understanding & Hating

Daily Bread

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You may think my title to this devotion is a strange one, but consider what the psalmist writes to us in Psalm 119,

“Through Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way” (Psalm 119: 104 – NKJV)

Within our text are the concepts of “understanding” and “hating.” What might seem to be two totally different things are brought together in one text from God’s Word. And it shouldn’t be difficult for us to see how the two really do go with one another, especially in this passage.

From God’s Word, from His “precepts,” we get “understanding. We gain “understanding” as to how the worlds were framed, how man and woman came to be. We gain “understanding” as to how, through man’s disobedience, his rebellion, sin came into God’s creation and violated God’s holiness and such separated man from His Maker. We gain “understanding” that rather than destroying completely what deserved to be so judged, God worked down through the ages to make a “way” by which fallen man might be reconciled to Him. We gain “understanding” that God, in Christ, through the Person and work of His one and only Son, provided a “way” back for the created to the Creator. We gain “understanding” that Jesus the Christ” went to the cross, was crucified, dead, and buried and then rose up from the grave . . . and that by this work He has provided the “way” to be saved from our sin . . . He has provided the “way . . . to the Father,” the unique and only “way” (John 14:6; Acts 4:12; etc.). This “understanding” we “get” from God’s “precepts.”

Then the psalmist writes, “Therefore . . .” a word that directs our attention back to what has just been said so we can understand what is about to be said:

“based on what I have just said . . . that ‘through (God’s) precepts I get understanding,’ the result of that is that ‘I hate every false way.'”

Brethren, there is a most dangerous opposition to this “understanding” that the “precepts” of God provide. And this opposition seeks to muddle the message, seeks to cater to the fallen nature of man and through lies and deception keep him from “understanding,” keep him on a “way” to destruction, a “way” that leads to the judgment that is due every rebellious sinner by the righteous indictment of God. Satan and his vast demon empire and the world system over which he rules seeks to cloud any “understanding” of God’s message of hope for man, of God’s “way” of reconciliation.

And so, our “understanding” that we get of this most serious struggle that exists for the very soul of man, whether a man will spend eternity in heaven or hell, comes from God’s “precepts” and from them alone . . . and knowing this, we “hate every false way” that would lead mankind to understand otherwise.

Yes, “understanding” God’s Word, His “precepts,” actually brings “hating” . . . . . . a “hating” of “every false way.”

Have a good day brethren . . . and as you walk be one who understands the right way and hates every false way.

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