Excerpt from Alien Love Chapter 3: Identifying Love

Love does not delight in evil

As you read this, I hope it doesn’t sound too elementary. I hope this, because I’ve been wrestling with these very basic principles, and I hate to think that you have firmly grasped onto the things which continue to evade me. Do I have to really love everyone? If so, do I have to be tender hearted and affectionate to everyone? Does God like everyone?

Love isn’t always soft and fuzzy. If fact, there are certain things that love hates. Loves doesn’t delight in evil. I might even go so far as to say that love hates evil. I think it works in reverse as well. Evil hates love. In several places throughout Scripture, we are told to hate evil; that which is morally bad, sinful or depraved. Here is one passage in particular:

Psalm 97:10
10 Let those who love the LORD hate evil,
for he guards the lives of his faithful ones
and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.


The concepts of good and evil remain prevalent throughout time. Even in a culture of moral relativists, there is a sense that there are things which are acceptable and unacceptable. The actual debate in our culture isn’t about whether morality is relative. The real debate in our world has to do with who decides what is right and wrong. Prove me wrong.

Most people who claim that morality is relative to the individual, make quite definite moral stands themselves. It’s impossible to remove morality from the public sphere, because social law always has to do with what it allows or denies its citizens. So we find moral relativists who have very strong opinions on abortion and same sex marriage. As I’ve said, the debate in our time, is over who decides.

If you’ve been reading along, you likely know who I believe decides what is right and what is wrong. If we really have been created, then the one who made us gets to do the choosing. That’s not abstract thinking. If I start up my own business, I’m the one who decides how that business is run. If God is the One who made this all, and if He’s the One who we answer to when we’re done, He’s the one who chooses. That’s why for many people, they have to believe that there is no God, because if there is a God, if this wasn’t an accident, the reckoning is going to be all too serious.

Love hates the things that God hates. Much of the time, part of the reason why it hates those things, is because they ruin lives. Have you ever met someone who said, “I’m so glad that my mom is an alcoholic.”? “I can’t wait for my dad to come home and abuse our family.”? “I’m so fortunate to have been sexually exploited when I was a child.”?

There are times in our relationships where we allow people to follow after their own evil desires. I suppose much of the time, we really don’t see their desires as being evil. In this instance, even if I knew of an example, I don’t know if I’d want to share it. After all, if it was about one of you, would you want to see your dirty laundry exposed in this arena? Instead, I’m going to look at a couple who lived a few thousand years ago.

Their names are Ahab and Jezebel. They were the king and queen of Israel around 860BC. It was a good life being the king. Ahab’s job brought home a decent pay check week after week, and he made enough money to put a decent roof over their heads. There weren’t any amusement parks back in the day, but if they wanted to go somewhere on summer vacation, they weren’t without the funds or the transportation.

It can be tough at the top though. No matter how much you acquire, there always seems to be something that you don’t have which belongs to someone else. Next to Ahab’s palace in Samaria, there was a vineyard belonging to a man named Naboth. It would be the perfect addition to the palace. Ahab already had plans to make it into a vegetable garden. The problem was that it belonged to Naboth and he refused to sell it.

Unfortunately, Ahab wasn’t on my contact list. He didn’t purchase my last book, listen to me speak, or read any of my blog posts. He didn’t really hate the things that God hated. If he did, if he knew that God hated coveting, and if he had have chosen to agree with God, he would have left the vegetable garden dream in the closet of his mind. But Ahab longed for the things that belonged to other people. That, by definition, is coveting.

Love hates coveting because God hates coveting. If Ahab’s wife had been aware of God’s stand on coveting, and if she had truly loved her husband, Ahab’s plans for the vegetable garden should have ended there. Instead, Ahab allowed his jealousy to bother him to the point where his bride began to notice it in his appearance.

Once day she asked him, “What’s the matter?... What’s made you so upset that you’re not eating?”
“I asked Naboth to sell me his vineyard or trade it, but he refused!” Ahab told her.
“Are you the king of Israel or not?” Jezebel demanded. “Get up and eat something and don’t worry about it. I’ll get you Naboth’s vineyard.” 1 Kings 21:5-7

Ahab’s wife got the vineyard for him. She conspired in having Naboth murdered by the people of his town. The story of Ahab and Jezebel might sound a bit extreme. After all, when is the last time any of us had someone murdered? We’re not as bad as they are. Or are we? The sad thing about the relationship between Ahab and Jezebel isn’t the severity of their crimes. The dark reality at play here is this; if we are open and transparent about some of these themes, these elements have their way of showing up in some of our own relationships. Jezebel had something to profit in Ahab’s gain. She would also have her own use for the garden.

I knew of a couple where the husband had a business outside of his full time employment. Sometimes, he would accept cash payments and fail to report the earnings on his income tax. His wife was pleased to have a little extra spending money on weekends. After a few years, a very strange and unfortunate thing happened. The man and woman went through a very horrible divorce. That was the unfortunate part. The strange part was this. After the divorce, the woman reported her ex-husband to Revenue Canada for failing to claim all of his business income. Is that not wierd? Before the divorce, she was very approving of the practise. What changed?

Nothing changed. She didn’t love him before they were divorced and neither did she love him after the divorce. If she had truly loved him while they were married, she would not have approved of his business practices because love does not delight in what is wrong.

Have you ever been in a relationship where you could profit from your partner’s dishonesty? As I look back on my life, these same themes have come up in my own marriage. There have been times when my wife and I have coveted our neighbour’s property. Maybe your neighbour doesn’t have a vineyard. Does he have a shiny new car? How about a new deck? Coveting is like stealing. What if your spouse did something a little dishonest at work that brought home some extra money? Since it profits you in some way, would you let it slide? Love doesn’t do this. Would you make them make it right? Or would you take the money and use it to buy some fishing tackle or to get your hair done? Would you speak out against the evil or would you pretend that it wasn’t all that bad?