"Be angry and do not sin." Listen—there can hardly be any goodness in a person who is not angry at sin. If you love truth, you must hate every false way.

Look at how our Lord Jesus hated sin when temptation came! Three times it attacked him in different forms, and every time he met it with the same fierce response: "Get behind me, Satan!" He hated sin in others too. And don't think his hatred was weak because he showed it more often in tears of pity than in words of rebuke. What language could be more thunderous, more Elijah-like, than these words: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You devour widows' houses and for a show make long prayers."

He hated wickedness so much that he bled to wound it to the heart. He died that it might die. He was buried to bury it in his tomb. And he rose to trample it forever beneath his feet.

Christ is in the Gospel, and that Gospel stands against wickedness in every form. Evil dresses itself in beautiful clothes and mimics the language of holiness. But the commands of Jesus, like that famous whip of small cords, drive it out of the temple. He will not tolerate it in his Church.

And in the heart where Jesus reigns? What a war rages there between Christ and Belial! When our Redeemer returns as Judge, those thundering words—"Depart from me, you who are cursed"—will reveal his complete abhorrence of sin. Those words are nothing new. They are simply the final echo of everything he taught about sin during his life.

As warm as his love burns for sinners, that's how hot his hatred blazes against sin. As perfect as his righteousness stands, that's how complete will be the destruction of every form of wickedness.

O glorious champion of right! Destroyer of wrong! For this very reason God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above all others.