A Brief Introduction

In an age that often prizes tolerance above truth and relevance above righteousness, Romans 12:9 calls believers to a higher standard: sincere, undissembled love that fiercely abhors evil and tenaciously cleaves to good. This poem echoes that ancient charge, reminding us that holy hatred of sin—paired with Christlike grace—guards the church, strengthens communities, and preserves godly culture.

Romans 12:9 (KJV) “Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.”

Romans 12:21 (KJV) “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Ephesians 5:11 (KJV) “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”

Proverbs 8:13 (KJV) “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.”

Psalm 97:10 (KJV) “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints…”

Let love be undissembled, pure and bright,

As dawn’s first ray that brooks no shade of night;

No honeyed tongue that hides a viper’s tooth,

But heart with heart in covenant of truth.

Abhor the evil — loathe it as the grave

Loathes life, as darkness hates the light it craves.

Not mild distaste, nor tolerance’s truce,

Nor relevance that bends the holy use

To fit the fleeting fashions of the age

And make the narrow way seem broad and sage.

With holy hatred scorch the creeping lie,

The lust that turns the temple into sty,

The envy’s gall, the pride that topples thrones,

The greed that gnaws the marrow from men’s bones,

The sloth that chokes the good seed ere it rise,

The wrath that blinds both justice and mercy’s eyes.

Cast out as dross what God has named unclean,

For we are called to abhor, not to convene

With darkness in the name of love or peace —

No compromise where holy wrath must cease.

Thus altars stand, thus cultures are preserved,

When evil is detested and not served.

O cleave to good! As shipwrecked sailor clings

To rock amid the tempest’s furious wings;

As ivy grips the ancient oak in hold,

As magnet leaps to steel with joy untold.

Cleave to the truth that sets the captive free,

To justice robed in pure integrity,

To mercy that forgives yet calls sin sin,

To courage that will die ere it give in.

Thus churches rise, unshaken on the stone,

Not seeker-pleasing, not to trends conformed,

But faithful pillars where the Word is throned,

Unbent by winds however fierce or warm.

Thus communities, like ramparts old and high,

Defy the flood when evil men decry;

Thus cultures flourish, rooted deep in grace,

And nations walk where heaven shows its face.

Awake, O watchers! Lift the trumpet’s blast,

Call out the canker ere the harvest’s past.

With love’s fierce fire and Christ-like tears of grace,

Expose the darkness, occupy the space

Where good must grow. Hate sin, yet love the soul;

Reprove, restore, and make the wounded whole.

For in this balance — love without disguise,

Abhorring evil, scorning compromise,

Rejecting tolerance of what defiles

And relevance that only breeds more wiles —

The image of our Maker shines once more,

And heaven’s pattern treads the earthly floor.

So guard the hearth, the altar, and the line,

Till Christ returns in glory all-divine.