The Lord preserves His saints who love Him and hate evil!

Psalm 97:10-11

‘The Lord reigns!… The Heavens declare His righteousness!… Confounded be all they that serve graven images!… You that love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the souls of His saints! He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked! Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart!’ Psalm 97:1-11.

Calvin comments: “‘Jehovah reigns!’… The reign of God is inseparably connected with the salvation, and the best happiness of mankind….

“‘The Heavens have declared His righteousness!’… The spiritual righteousness of God should be so signally manifested under the reign of Christ, as to fill both Heaven and Earth….

“‘Confounded be all those who serve graven images!’… The truth of God is effectual when revealed in dispelling and dissipating superstitions…. We need not wonder…that the Psalmist, in predicting the Kingdom of God, triumphs over the ungodly nations!

“The knowledge of the true doctrine is extinguished amongst the Turks, the Jews, and Papists…. They cannot possibly return to a sound mind or repent of their errors, when they are ignorant of the true God..”

To love God, also implies its very opposite — namely to hate evil. Just as to hate God, implies that one loves evil.

Calvin comments: “We cannot be…acknowledged to be His (God’s) servants, unless we depart from sin!… God is in Himself the fountain of righteousness, and He must necessarily hate all iniquity…. We have fellowship with Him, only on the terms of separation from unrighteousness…. God is the Keeper and Protector of His people. If…under the Divine guardianship, we will not…retaliate injury upon those who have wronged us!”

God therefore preserves His saints, and their souls. He not only protects them. But He also saves them from the hand of those who are wicked.

Calvin comments: ‘Light has been sown for the righteous’… By ‘light’ is meant joy, or a prosperous outcome…. Though the righteous may almost be banished out of the world…, God will spread abroad their joy — like seed.”

Calvin also says in his Institutes II:10:16: “Nor can those things…said as to the prosperous success of believers, be understood in any other sense than as referring to the manifestation of celestial glory…. ‘He preserves the souls of His saints; He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart’…. Psalm 97:10-11.”

The Lord preserves His saints who love Him, and hate evil! Do you?