1 John 4:20, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
What is it to hate our brother?
Matthew 5:20-24
“For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.”
Dr. J. I. Packer has well said,
“Any Christian who seriously thinks that without Christ men are lost, and who seriously loves his neighbor, will not be able to rest for the thought that all around him people are going to hell, but will lay himself out unstintingly to convert others as his prime task in life; and any Christian who fails so to live undermines the credibility of his faith, for if he cannot himself take it seriously as a guide for living, why should anyone else? … [What is most needed is] a passionate love and a terribly honest, earnest, straightforward Christian, thinking and talking about the lost with perfect realism, insisting that we must be content to accept any degree of discomfort, poverty, overwork and loss of material good, if only souls might be saved, and setting us a marvellously vivid example in his own person of what this may involve.”
However, anyone who is not thoroughly convinced of their own salvation or that there is a heaven to lose and a hell to gain shall in no wise be moved with compassion for the salvation of other men’s everlasting souls. For how shall we say, “I love God,” if we neither love our neighbor as Christ so loved us nor seek to exhibit the same grace which we have received by the Spirit of grace who abides in us — unless, of course, we fail the test (2 Corinthians 13:5).
Matthew 6:14,15, “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”
Do you set less by souls than the Redeemer of souls? Truly, there is no greater hatred than to be negligent or indifferent towards the purpose of Christ’s shed blood which was given for the sins of the world that none should perish but that all may come to everlasting life freely through faith in Christ Jesus. What! To be inconsiderate and careless for those whom Christ died? If you close up your heart from your neighbor, how dwells the love of God in you (1 John 3:17)?
Charles Spurgeon’s sermon, A Neglected Duty:
the Lord has told us by the mouth of his prophet Ezekiel, “If thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.”…
The law and the gospel with one voice call us to the duty we are now endeavoring to enforce. The law: “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him” (Leviticus 19:17). The gospel: “Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother” (Matthew 18:15)…
You cannot do your friend a greater kindness than to admonish him in the Lord, nor can you wish your enemy a greater injury than to go unrebuked…
It were well if people, as well as ministers, would lay to heart the duty of speaking often one to another by way of admonition. “Exhort one another daily,” says the apostle, “while it is called to-day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” We should not then have to revive the complaint of Bernard concerning the talk of professors—”not a word of the Scriptures—nothing of the salvation of the soul; but trifles, and toys, and laughter, and words light as the wind, ‘eat up the time.’” If we were frequently to warn the unconverted, how much good might we be doing! whereas now we are adding one sin of omission to another by our unconcern about immortal souls. How many a Naaman might have been washed from his leprosy if his Christian servants had been earnest enough to speak with him on soul matters! But, alas! Blood-guiltiness is hardly felt to be a sin in these days! Soul-murder is scarcely ever wept over! A poor wretch dies of starvation, and men cry out because bread was not given him; but when souls sink into damnation for lack of knowledge, they who withhold the bread of heaven will not allow their consciences to trouble them. May the Lord give us tenderness of heart to repent the neglect of the past, and holy resolution to labor more heartily in the future.
