2. We Seek to Please the Lord (vv. 4-6). God has no pleasure in wickedness, nor can He be neutral about sin; therefore, rebel sinners couldn’t enter into His presence (15:1ff.; 24:3-6). God delights in those who fear Him (147:11) and who offer sincere praise to Him (69:30-31). To please God, we must have faith (Heb. 11:6) and be identified with His Son in whom He is well pleased (Matt. 3:17). When you read verses 5-6 and 9-10, you meet a crowd of people who deliberately and repeatedly disobey God and think nothing of the consequences. It’s the crowd John describes in Revelation 21:8, the people who are going to hell. God loves the world of lost sinners (John 3:16) and sent His only Son “to be the Saviour of the world” (1 John 4:14; and see 1 Tim. 2:3-4; 2 Peter 3:9). Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world (1 John 2:1-2), and His invitation to salvation is sent to all who will believe and come (Matt. 11:28-30; Rev. 22:17). Such are the vast dimensions of God’s grace and love (Eph. 3:18-19).

But the glorious truth of God’s love doesn’t change the fact that God hates sin and punishes sinners. He has no pleasure in them, and they cannot dwell with Him (v. 4) or stand before Him as they are (v. 5; see 1:5-6). He abhors murderers and liars and destroys them if they don’t trust His Son (v. 6). It isn’t necessary to dilute the word hate in verse 5 because you find it also in 11:5 and 45:7; and see 7:11. In fact, the Lord expects those who love Him to love what He loves and hate what He hates (97:10; 119:113; 139:21; Prov. 6:16-19; Amos 5:15; Rom. 12:9). There is no such thing as “abstract evil” except in dictionaries and philosophy books. Evil is not an abstraction; it’s a terrible force in this world, wrecking lives and capturing people for hell. God’s hatred of evil isn’t emotional; it’s judicial, an expression of His holiness. If we want to fellowship with God at His holy altar, then we need to feel that same anguish (anger plus love) as we see the evil in this fallen world.