Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast with John Piper.

Yesterday we talked here about Satan's very first impulse for sin and where it originated.

Today Josh in Australia writes in with a short and simple but pretty profound question.

And it's this, Pastor John, should I hate Satan?

And does God Himself hate Satan?

How should we feel about Satan is hatred too strong?

Let's begin as so often with a definition.

I can't get anywhere without a definition what exactly is hate or hatred.

When we're considering love, it's a flip side, and hate, we need to remember that both

of them are used in two fairly distinct ways.

For example, love may mean being pleased with the loveliness and the beauty of something.

So I might say, I love that painting or I love it when you treat your little brother

that way.

But there's the other kind of love which regardless of whether the object is lovely or pleasing

chooses desires to seek the benefit of the person or the thing that is loved.

So Jesus requires that we love our enemies and these enemies may be very unlovely and morally

corrupt and extremely displeasing to us.

So the second kind of love still holds, we treat them better than they deserve, we seek

their good.

It's the same way, flipping around, it's the same way with hatred.

It can mean intense disapproval or dislike for what is evil or ugly or distasteful as

when I say hate mushrooms or I hate abortion.

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