Row was empty before I got up here, right? If I start taking examples from the back row, will you just move forward? Alrighty. Well, Romans 12, and we're going to get into a bit of a series here. We're going to start slightly different than what I anticipated, but the Lord's given me some thoughts here that I think is a good way to start. Romans 12, verse nine will be our key text that we're building on. Romans 12, verse nine. The Bible says here, let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. And so we're gonna be spending a bit of time considering these three facets, really, of letting our love be without dissimulation, not being hypocritical or two-faced in our love and our affection. And this, this idea of abhorring that which is evil and cleaving to that which is good, and so we're gonna spend some time just going through the scriptures, looking at the things that the Lord calls evil that need to be abhorred, and the things that the Lord calls good that need to be claimed to, and most of our sermons going through here will be built on that structure, but as I stepped into it, This isn't the only place where there is instruction about abhorring or instruction about cleaving. And so I found there wasn't a whole lot of topics that were instructed to abhor and instructed to cleave. And so starting off, looking at the things that are specifically stated here's something we ought to abhor and here's something that ought to be cleaved or claved to and as we walk through this you'll see the the similarities and why they come together. I'd like you to Pay attention, I'm not necessarily specifically bringing it out, although we may look at it in a couple of places if the Lord brings it to mind. But Romans 12 verse nine says to let your love be without dissimulation. and it says to cleave and it says to abhor because cleaving is an action that is driven by love. It's your love in action. Whilst not solely the way the word is used, I think, oh, I read one reference, it's not my studies, I just skimmed over it and now I've forgotten who it was, but the leprosy cleaved to their body. It's not necessarily a picture of love, right? the leprosy cleaving to their skin. But as we look at it in context, of so many of these passages, we see it is about the things that we're to hate, in that sense, and the things that we're to love. The cleaving being a picture of our love, and an enacting of our love, and the abhorring being an enacting of our rejection, of our hatred. And so just bear that in mind as we walk through this. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. We'll have a word of prayer and we'll step into this study. Actually, Dan, can I ask you to lead us in prayer, please, bro? Lord, thank you for this time. We can open your word, and I pray that you'll help us now to really concentrate on what Pastor Luke has for us. I pray that you'll give him the wisdom and knowledge to present what you have laid on his heart tonight. And I pray that we'll go away with renewed that we will be able to apply what we've learned tonight to our lives throughout the week. I pray all these things now in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, amen. Alrighty, so what we're simply doing, we're going back to Leviticus chapter 20. We're not looking at every single reference of abhorring or where the word comes up. What we're going to are the passages of scripture where there's specific instruction to God's people that this should be abhorred or the few places where there is an example to follow from the Lord about this is something that should be abhorrent to us. Leviticus 20 is our first place where we find some help in this. You know, sometimes, sometimes when we go to do a study on something, as we just do a simple word study and you punch in a word search, or if you start scrolling through the pages of your Bible, if you want to avoid the, the technology and look for this word coming up or this occurrence coming up, we can find ourselves getting a good structure of knowledge about what the Bible has on this topic. It's a good simple way to examine the scriptures and it's very deliberate the way the Lord has used different words, even over into our King James and that preservation we have over there, the Lord's been deliberate in the words He chose and in the words that He's used. So Leviticus chapter 20, I'm not there yet, I'm too busy talking, stop turning. Leviticus 20 and verse 22. We'll pick up the reading here. You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my judgments, and do them, that the land whither I bring you to dwell therein spew you not out. And you shall not walk in the manners of the nations which I cast out before you, for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them. If you went back to the beginning of chapter 20 and looked through the list, of all the things that the people of the nation that the Lord cast out did, you would look at that and go, I understand why the Lord abhorred them. What you'll also do is as you look at that and then come off the Scriptures, stop looking at that ancient world and understanding why the Lord abhorred that ancient people and came out of the Scriptures and looked at the world around you, you would look at that and go, wow, the Lord must abhor what is going on today. Here, the Lord wasn't exercising his long-suffering anymore. The fullness of the sin of the nation had come in and they'd reached a judgment point and the Lord was no longer long-suffering and he was using Israel as a hand of judgment, driving out those nations because of their abhorrent behavior. You know, How often this world runs an argument of if God is so good, why doesn't he just step in and smite thou, oh mighty God, and smite the sinner? And they mistake the long-suffering of God for his indifference. They mistake his mercy for lack of care. And the Lord is long-suffering to us, we're not willing that any should perish. And that's what we're seeing in the world today is the long-suffering of God, but here, The Lord spoke of their deeds that they committed, and therefore I abhorred them. But I have said unto you, you shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people. You shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean, and you shall not make your souls abominable by beasts or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean. and ye shall be holy unto me, for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that you should be mine. Here the Lord is saying, I have said unto you, you shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people. What had the Lord done? There was a people that he abhorred because of their actions and he had driven them out of the land and he had placed Israel in there and instructed them to be a peculiar people, a separated people. I have abhorred them and I have separated you from other people, the scriptures said. Here the instruction isn't for Israel to abhor, it was God that abhorred, but because of God's abhorrence of those people. He said to his children, I want you to be separate. I want you to not walk in that. And that's what any loving father would do. Any loving father that has an absolute abhorration for cats will instruct his children likewise. Foolish, I know, but if we take it to something serious, if we take it to the wickedness of sin, if we take it to lies, and we abhor lies, if we abhor laziness, if we abhor lasciviousness, and you know, lasciviousness in an 18-year-old will display in pornography addiction. Lasciviousness in an eight year old will portray itself in lolly addiction. And they just give themselves to fleshly pleasures and you never teach them to temper themselves and reign it in. You better reign it in young when it's cartoons and video games and sweets. And teach them to not walk in lasciviousness as a little one. if you want them to have any hope of standing against the lust of the flesh as an adult, when it's so much more wicked and so much more harmful. Would be better for them to learn the lesson through some tooth decay, wouldn't it? Than some moral decay. And teach them through the lesser things, that they would be faithful in little things, that they then might be ruler over much, because the much is coming. Mom and dad are leaving, they're not gonna be under you anymore. The Lord said, I'm gonna separate you, I'll heal your people. There's things that I abhor, there's a people that I abhor. Take the time, I won't because it'll keep us here too long tonight, but take the time in Leviticus 20 to read through the list. And we might come back to, I dare say, I haven't fleshed this all out yet, but I dare say, as we look at the things that the Lord says is evil and identifies as evil, we will find ourselves back in Leviticus, maybe even in Leviticus 20 here, finding the things here in this passage that the Lord said are evil and he abhorred. And so we are therefore to separate ourselves from them. But I want you to see the people. Go to Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter 7. There is a people that God said, you will be separated from these people because I abhor their deeds. Deuteronomy 7 verse 17. If thou shalt say in thine heart, these nations are more than I, how can I dispose them? And in the going into the land, in the Lord using them to drive out the Canaanite, drive out and be used as a judgment of God against them. If they get to a place where these people are too great, how can I be disposed to do that? Here's the instruction in Deuteronomy. The second giving of the law, here's the instruction that was failed in Moses' day. Because remember, they were gripped by fear. They said, how can we dispose them? We're like grasshoppers in their sight. They're giants in the land. How can we dispose them of the land? How can we dispossess them of the land and drive them out? The Lord gave us the answer here. He says, Well, what, lost me place, verse 17. If thou shalt say in thine heart, these nations are more than I, how can I dispossess them? Thou shalt not be afraid of them, but shalt well remember that the Lord thy God did what the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh and unto all Egypt. You ever face a giant in front of you and go, how can I face that giant in my life? Our youth did a study last year through, I think it was last year, slaying giants. Giants in our life. There's a book called The Giant Slayer, and it names major sins that are sins that easily beset us, whether it be slothfulness, or whether it be deceitfulness, or these different things that come in of anger, these giants, and you go, how can I ever dispossess this land? How can I deliver from this thing that's a giant in my life, this enemy? And we forget that at our salvation, the Lord has already dethroned Satan, delivered us from the power of darkness under His marvelous light, moved us as Gentiles from the power of Satan unto God. If that giant can be slain, then What are these little trivial things in front of us? That's the argument God runs here. If you face an enemy in front of you, this is too great. He said, remember the enemy behind you that I've already delivered you from. Remember Egypt. Remember Pharaoh. That when you were powerless and had nothing, I delivered you out of there. Now you are a nation with soldiers and armies and organized, and how much more will I use you to drive out the land in front of you? If thou shalt say in thine heart, these nations are more than I, how can I dispose them? Thou shalt not be afraid of them, but thou shalt remember what the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh and unto all Egypt, the great temptations which thine eyes saw, and the signs and wonders, and the mighty hand, and the stretched out arm whereby the Lord thy God brought thee out. So shall the Lord thy God do unto all the people of whom thou art afraid. You notice what he says? He said the Lord even delivered them from that great temptation. We often think of the great enemy that tried to keep them there. But you know, when they got to the other side of the Red Sea, there was still a great enemy, that great temptation, where they're in the hardships of the Christian life, and they remembered the days that they left behind, the leeks and the onions of Egypt. Doesn't sound like much, does it? But when you've been eating nothing but bread, And when the Lord's allows you to gorge yourself on unseasoned quail, I mean, we like roast chook, right? But that's because it's got some stuff on it. Just do it with nothing, just chook, day in, day out, day in, day out, day in, day out. That gets old. Christian life gets dry, it gets hard. Sometimes the Lord puts us in a hard spot and grows us through a wilderness period, and you're gonna have great temptation. And the Lord pointed out, he said, remember the temptation that I delivered you from, the stretched out arm, whereby the Lord thy God brought thee out. So shall the Lord thy God do unto all the people of whom thou art afraid. Moreover, the Lord thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left and hide themselves from thee be destroyed. And thou shalt not be afraid of them, for the Lord thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible. And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little. Thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction until they be destroyed. And he shall deliver their king into thine hand and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven. There shall no man be able to stand before thee until thou have destroyed them. The graven images of their gods shall you burn with fire. Thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it under thee, lest thou be snared therein, for it is an abomination to the Lord thy God. Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it, but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it, for it is a cursed thing. You know what the Lord said? He said, I'm gonna take you from Egypt, I'm gonna take you into the promised land, and little by little, I'm gonna give you the victory over the old inhabitants of the promised land. I'm not just gonna drive it out where there's nothing but a vacuum in front of you, but little by little, I'll drive them out. There's not gonna be a wilderness. Little by little, we'll drive them out. And little by little, you'll get the victory. And if you've walked the Christian life for any length of time, you'll be able to see the parallel that that's exactly what the Christian life is. That little by little, the Lord just keeps driving out and driving out and driving out. And you get the victory and you think, yes, I've got it. And the Lord goes, good, now we'll deal with this enemy. Okay, Lord, I'll focus and I'm at battle again. And you deal with that enemy and the Lord goes, and you go, yes, I've got it. I can rest a little while. And you find yourself laying down in green pastures. And as you're laying there, the Lord draws your attention to this enemy. And little by little by little, you possess the land. And as you drive out the enemy, the Lord says this, they'll be graven images of their gods. Do you know why? Do you know why there's graven images of the gods of the land in Canaan that was driven out? Because they were false gods and their little legs didn't work and when people stopped carrying them, they stayed there as dumb idols. You ever seen that photo? There's a photo getting around of someone in India or somewhere in the third world and floods are coming through. And here's this little old person, I think it's a little old lady, but this little old person with a big old idol on their shoulder, and they have to save their God from the flood. And here comes the flood, and they pick up their idol, and they totter out with their idol, saving their God from the flood. I'm glad we have a God that saves us, rather than a God that we have to save, amen? Here, the Lord says, as I drive them out, There'll be images left. There'll be idols left. There'll be things that, they are nothing, they're just dumb idols, but they will point back and be reminders of the wickedness that was there. There'll be silver and gold, things of value, things of intrinsic value that are pointers to the wickedness that was. And the Lord said, when I've driven it out of the land, you make sure you abhor those things. He says, I'll deal with the enemy. You abhor the things that point to that wickedness. You know what we do as we mature in our Christianity? We mature around our Christianity and we get to the place where we understand that they are but dumb idols. It's meat offered under idols. It has no power. It has no force. It has no strength behind it. Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. I don't need to bear any attention to it. All these things are just, they're trivial, they're pointless, but here, The Bible says there can be a snare therein. Those things that are reminders of the leeks and the onions, the temptations, those things that keep on catching our attention. Oh, it's not the sin. It's just the remnant of the sin. It's just the leftovers. It's just the things of value. Oh, God delivered you from the old life. He said, now get rid of the things of the old life. You've got rid of the old worship, you've got rid of the old fixations, you've got your mind on me, now get rid of the old things. Not just the old worship. Not just drive out the wickedness, but abhor, the Bible says, the things that are in service to the old man. What is it that God saved you from? What is it that God delivered you from? What is it that God said, you are mine now and I've consecrated you, I'm taking you from here and I'm going to there? You know, the Lord saved Paul out of Judaism. He saved Paul out of Old Testament worship. And you know what he said? He said, Paul, you're gonna leave it all behind and you're gonna go on to the Gentiles. Do you know the only point where it clearly states and the Bible makes it very plain that Paul went against the Holy Spirit of God was when he kept pushing to get back to Jerusalem for the Passover. And he kept on pushing to get back to Jerusalem for the feast. A feast that was done and passed. A feast that meant nothing. A feast that was just a cultural experience now. A feast that in and of itself was not wicked. But perhaps for Paul, perhaps it was the thing that was an emblem, a remnant of what God had saved him from. When we moved out to Yalkara, Man, I tried hard to figure out how to fence it, how to build some stockyards on it, how to sort out a cow for a milker, how to put some beef cattle on it to fatten it. The Lord's given me some land, I'm gonna put some cattle on there. No, there's nothing wrong with cattle. But I have a hard time visiting all my sheep and spending enough time with my sheep. You know how much a distraction it would be if I had to chase cows as well? Lord made it plain to me there's nothing wicked in cattle but I didn't give you this land for cattle I gave it to you for space and for Dan and for Shane and for the end but anyway I gave it to you for space oh the The false gods, the gold and the silver. Let me ask you something. You older, mature Christians, you that have been saved for a while, are you allowing things back in that God saved you from at the start? Are you allowing things to become sentimental reminders of what was? Oh, what a catastrophe it is to destroy some rock art in Australia. What a cultural offense it is to tear down a temple in some other part of the world. And what a human right it is to have abortions up to birth. And how we get it all mixed around. And what humankind wants to hold on to is the thing that is an image of sin, an image of atrocity, an image to something that should be abhorred and despise the thing that is an image of God and the things that drive us on to godliness. Abhorrence, the things to abhor, the gold, the silver, The graven image of their gods shall ye burn with fire. Thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it under thee, lest thou be snared therein, for it is an abomination to the Lord thy God. Neither shall thou bring an abomination into thy house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it, but thou shalt utterly detest it, And thou shalt utterly abhor it, for it is a cursed thing. The things that we're to abhor. In Deuteronomy, stay in the book and go to chapter 23. Chapter 23, verse three. Deuteronomy chapter 23. We'll pick up the reading in verse 3. An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord forever. Why? The Bible tells us, because they met you not with bread and with water in the way when you came forth out of Egypt, and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor of Pthor of Mesopotamia to curse thee. Nevertheless, the Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam, but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the Lord thy God loved thee. Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days forever. But in verse 7, thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is thy brother. An Edomite, the people that came from Esau. Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is thy brother. Thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian, because thou wast a stranger in his land. Not the captivity of Egypt, but rather the hospitality of Egypt where they dwelt as strangers in that land. The Edomite they're not to abhor. The Egyptian they're not to abhor. But the Ammonite and the Moabite shall not enter into the congregation. What does it mean they shall not enter into the congregation? In verse seven, sorry, verse eight, the children that are begotten of them, the children that are begotten of the Edomites and of the Egyptians shall enter into the congregation of the Lord in their third generation. It's talking about service of the Lord in the congregation of the Lord. And it's talking about an Egyptian family that joins itself to Israel. Edomite family that joins itself to Israel. They come in, and as they come into the service of the Lord, as they come into the nation of Israel, they're not forbidden from the service of the Lord forever. The two or three generations down the road, they'll just be an Israelite like anyone else was an Israelite. Their past will be forgotten, it'll be irrelevant. But the Moabite, the Ammonite, oh, their sin was such that it will never be forgotten. As it comes to the service of the Lord, they'll never be counted in the number. They're not forbidden that they can never be a part of Israel. That's the purpose of this passage. It's not saying that no generational direction down the line, oh, my great-great-grandmother was a Moabite. No, it's not about that. It's about when it comes into the service of the congregation of the Lord, there is a history that'll be marked where the Lord says, here's a people, here's a people that because of their actions, because of their decisions, it flows on from generation to generation. And you know what the beautiful thing about this is? The Lord brought this to an end. This was all dealt with at the cross of Calvary. This was dealt with at Pentecost. You know in the Tower of Babel where the Lord brought confusion and divided the languages and divided the nations and said, I'll not work with you as one people anymore, but I'll work with the nations at Pentecost with the church. He said in the church, we won't worry about nations, we'll worry about the congregation. We'll worry about that heavenly city. We'll worry about that heavenly citizenship, not the earthly citizenship. So the Lord did away with this, and there was the deliverance of this Old Testament law, but what the Lord was instituting here, what the Lord was instituting here was there is, there is, even in this Old Testament stance, there is an abhorrence that the Lord says an ongoing consequence. I haven't pursued it, I haven't worked through it all to find how there's grace and deliverance for an Ammonite or a Moabite. But I do know this, they could not be right with God and still hold on to their Moabiteness and their Ammoniteness. You know, Nebuchadnezzar got right with God. Babylonian king. We don't see him becoming an Israelite. We just see him getting right with God. I can't make sense of all that. I don't know how all that Old Testament law and regulation, how all that works. Naaman, he got right with God. Didn't see him become an Israelite. Joined the nation of Israel. I don't know how all that worked. We didn't get told the rest of that story. But you know, you can't. You can't get right with God and hold on to the thing that is abhorrent to God. You can't serve God and mammon. You can't serve Christ and Belial, light and darkness. And there is something about the darkness that is to be abhorred. One of the problems in society today, and I understand there is a scriptural truth behind the statement, but there's an unbiblical statement that has permeated Christianity. And the statement is that God hates the sin and loves the sinner. And there is a biblical truth about that. I understand there's a biblical truth about that. But there's also a truth that the Lord said that sinner has an evil heart of unbelief. And there's something evil about that sinner himself. It's not my actions alone that needed saving. I needed redeeming entirely myself because I was abhorrent to God. My righteousness was as filthy rags. By very nature was sinful. We were an unclean thing, not just an unclean action. Here, the Moabites, the Ammonites, they're identified as a people that God said, there is an unclean state there. And the New Testament application of that is whilst we're to go into all the world and preach the gospel, whilst there is to be the love of Christ for our fellow man, whilst we are to have a love for others. That doesn't mean we have to then turn around and tell ourself that they are actually lovely. Christ didn't. Christ didn't die on the cross because he looked down and went, wow, Micah's lovely. I better die for him. That's what Christine thinks. She looks over there and goes, Micah's lovely. Tom knows the truth, but mom's like, Micah's lovely. No, God looked down and despite the fact that we were abhorrent, if I can use that word. He didn't look down and say, there's a good man. People die for good men. But even while we were yet sinners, not sinning, sinners, possessive S, it's what you are. It's what the world is. Christ died for us. He didn't look down and go. Yet somehow Rhoda went, man, Mark is lovely. God looked down and said, Mark's not lovely, but I'll die for him anyway because I love him despite his sinfulness. How much greater love that is. Here, this isn't a word of hatred to the Moabites, it's a word of acknowledgement of the state that they were in, that the Ammonites were in. The Egyptians, they welcomed in The Edomites, they were family. They weren't to be abhorred. But there was a state of the Moabites and the Ammonites where God said that. He doesn't use the word abhorrent. He says, this is how you treat the Moabites and the Ammonites. He said, but don't abhor the Egyptians and the Edomites. And so we see the sinfulness of man, the actual state of man. It's not lovely, it's not something to be loved. Go with me to Psalms 10. We see We see the things that are to be abhorred. God abhorred them in Leviticus 20, and specifically in attachment to their actions. In Deuteronomy 7, we see the graven images that are to be abhorred. In Deuteronomy 23, we see the Ammonite in contrast to the Edomite and the Egyptian. Go with me now to Psalms 10. Psalms 10, and we'll have a look in verse one. Why stand thou afar off, O Lord? Why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor. Let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined, for the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire and blesseth the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth. Here we have the wicked and the wicked boasting of his heart's desire and the wicked blessing the covetousness, the covetous, and we see this unholy union amongst sinful deeds and sinful actions. What you see is the biblical example of birds of a feather flocking together. Be careful who you run with. Be careful of who you keep company with. And the wicked boasteth of the covetous, and the Lord says of whom the Lord abhorreth. It's not the natural state of the Moabite, it's the sinful state of man. The specific sins that God says, this is abhorrent. Covetousness, desiring what someone else has for yourself, not being content with such things as you have, not being content with God's provision. was a grievous enough sin that it didn't get left for some obscure Levitical law that came under the banner of love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, thy mind, and thy soul, and love thy neighbor as thyself, but was so needfully to be dealt with in the heart of man that amongst the 10 commandments, the Lord said, thou shalt not covet. But even at the thou shalt not covet, that wasn't sufficient. The Lord then ran through some specifics to really drive the point home. That whether it was a man's wife or whether it was a man's mode of transport, thou shalt not covet. That covetousness of looking at somebody else and going, oh, but if it was for me, How much that grips our hearts. You young men, you young men, listen up. This one will encroach on you. In fact, I've talked to all of you. It has encroached on you. So much of a young man's conversation is about the things that someone else has that you're then gonna get. Not theirs, just something like it. the hopes and the dreams of your life that are entirely pinned on the desire to be like someone else and have what they have because you're not content where you're at. And I see it verbalized in the lives of our young men, but it's there in our young women just as much, and it's there in the old man and the old woman just as much. Maybe we're just better at concealing it. where we see the things that others have and it breeds discontentment with where we're at. And here the Lord says, "...the wicked boasteth of his heart's desires, and blesseth the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth." I wonder what a wicked man would call a covetous person. I think the popular term or phrase is ambitious. I think that's the popular turn of phrase. They're ambitious. We boast of them. Is ambition wrong? If it's seated in covetousness, it is. If your ambition is seated in the fact that you've seen what someone else has got and you're going after that too, the Lord identifies that specifically as something he abhors in men's lives, in mankind's lives. Covetousness. The boasting of the wicked, the covetousness of the heart. Say in Psalms 119 and go over to 119 and we'll just skim through the chapter. No, not really. Psalms 119, 161, verse 161. Psalms 119, verse 161. Princes have persecuted me without a cause, but my heart standeth in awe of thy word. I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil. I hate and abhor lying, but thy law do I love. Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments. Great peace of they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them. Lord, I have hoped for thy salvation and done thy commandments. My soul hath kept thy testimonies and I love them exceedingly. I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies for all my ways are before thee. And right in the middle of this praise of God's word and God's testimony and how good it is, he said, I hate and abhor lying, but thy law do I love." I've just looked at some examples of abhor and what is abhorrent. I haven't looked at the things, the great many things that are listed as an abomination. An abomination is a thing that should be worthy, that is an abhorrence. It's an abomination, it's an abhorrence, and your emotional feeling determination towards an abomination is that you should abhor it. And here, the thing that we abhor, the psalmist says, I hate it. Similar to Paul's wording where he said, that which I hate, that I do. Actions and temptations and desires that Paul says, these should be things of hatred, that stir up hatred in you. some things that you hate about yourself. Don't get me wrong, you can get it a bit too carried away, but if you're saved this evening, if you have the love of Christ in you, if you have Christ in you, then there should be some things that you hate about yourself. The world will tell you, no, you should love everything about yourself. Can I tell you not everything about you is lovely? Not everything about me is lovely. There's some things about me that I need to be honest about, that I need to turn around and have the mind of Christ on and go, actually, that's abhorrent. That in me is an abomination. And one of it is lying. One of it is deceit. And how quick we are to do that. how quick we are to cover up and to hide who we actually are, what we're actually doing. Psalms 119. Princes have persecuted me without a cause, but my heart standeth in awe of thy word. I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil. We're not gonna go any further past this passage. We're just gonna touch on the cleaving here and we'll step into that the next time we come to it. But as we read this passage, the word abhor and the word hate appears clearly. The truth of cleaving is found in the passage and just spoken of with many different words. As I go through it again, I'll go right through these several verses here in this section. And as we do, look for the things that the psalmist cleaves to. Let love be without dissimulation, abhor that which is evil. Don't pick the evil that you like and you don't like. Don't pick and choose the evil that you're gonna run with. Abhor evil regardless. And don't pick and choose the things that you're gonna call lovely. Don't pick and choose the things you're gonna cleave to, cleave to that which is good. Don't pick and choose the random bits of God you're gonna love. Here the Bible says it this way. Princes have persecuted me without a cause but my heart. standeth in awe of thy word. Can you see the cleaving? I rejoice in thy word as one that findeth great spoil. You know what happens when you find great spoil? When you find a treasure hidden in the field, when you find a full tub of ice cream that you thought was empty, when you find a bag of coffee when you thought you were out, when you find a Red Bull at the back of the fridge and you thought your wife had thrown it out, No one knows who we're talking about, Steve. When you find that great deal, when you find that thing of great spoil, you cleave to it. This is worth holding onto. And the psalmist, he said, I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil. Those things, those things that you've found that, hey, I'm gonna latch onto that and put that into my memory and put that in my memory, I'm gonna hold onto that as something I'm gonna have, I'm gonna get, as opposed to the last time you came across something in the Word of God and it spoke to you so, it was such a treasure to you that you went, I'm gonna hold onto that, I'm gonna memorize that, I'm gonna lay that aside that I don't forget it. What is it that captivates you? The things of the world? The song that reminds you of the life you left behind that you won't get off your Spotify list? The piece of clothing or the trinket? or the item that's a reminder of the life you left behind? Here, the psalmist, he said, you know what's a treasure to me? Thy word, I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil. Not the gold and the silver that lined the idols that God delivered us from, but the word of God itself. I hate and abhor lying, but thy law do I love. What a contrast. Why is he contrasting the law with lying? Because he's contrasting truth with a lie. You know what the law of God is? The law of God is truth. When you read the law of God, that's how life is. That's where the blessings are. Live that way. That's what's right. The world's wrong. The other voices, the princes that persecuted him, that's the line, he hates that. But thy Lord do I love. Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments. It's on his brain, isn't it? How's your morning devotions going? How's your pre-smoko devotions going? How's your post-smoko devotions going? How's your pre-lunch devotions going? How's your post-lunch devotions going? How's your pre-dinner devotions going? How's your post-dinner devotions going? Seven times a day. Not in rote, dead, religious practice, but in praise. Because the righteous judgments of God have come true in his life seven times a day. He just finds it all through the day. God was right, praise the Lord. God was right, praise the Lord. I put God's word into practice deliberately today and it was right. God's righteous judgments, praise the Lord. so living the Christian life that continually, so cleaving to the word of God, so loving it that it didn't depart from him. Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. Lord, I have hoped for thy salvation and done thy commandments. My soul hath kept thy testimonies, and I love them exceedingly. I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies, for all my ways are before thee. The very first passage we're going to go to is about cleaving to your wife. You know what that means? That means don't get rid of her, keep her. In real simple terms, keep her, don't get rid of her. He kept God's Word. He didn't get rid of it. It stayed precious. He just kept it. He just claimed to it. As we look at the things we're to abhor, we're going to go through the list of evil. But here, just skimming, abhorring, you can see there's the old man, the old nature, the sin nature, the things attached to the sin nature. The things of this world, the Lord says you need to abhor that and be done with it. That's to be your mindset to it. And the only good we've looked at so far is the word of God and cleave into him, cleave into his word. Let's close with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you and praise you. I ask you to help us, my Lord. Help us to put into action these things. I pray that your Holy Spirit has spoken to the hearts of each and every person here. that my Lord, there's sins that easily beset us that we need to abhor but Lord, along with the sins, there's weights. Nothing sinful, just silver and gold of the old life that distract us and lead us astray, weights that slow us down in our race for you. Let us lay aside every weight. Let us abhor the things that you would have us abhor. Help us, Lord, to see things, to have the mind of Christ towards these things. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.