The Breaking Point: Unmasking Inner Demons We Hide | Day 2 - The Spirit of Hate

He passed his own cousin in the yard for two years and never said a word. Everybody said time was healing it. Then one Saturday, an old debt came up in front of the whole yard — words got heated, somebody pushed somebody, and two years of buried silence came out through a knife. Blood was spilled between two men who used to share the same table at their grandmother's.

Father, thank You for bringing me safely to this day and to this study. Thank You for Your patience with me as You continue to heal my heart. I ask for eyes to see what I have hidden even from myself. Sit with me in this Word tonight, Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Hate rarely looks like hate. It usually looks like distance. Politeness with no warmth. Silence where there used to be conversation. That's exactly what we find in the story of Absalom and his brother Amnon.

"And Absalom spake unto his brother Amnon neither good nor bad: for Absalom hated Amnon, because he had forced his sister Tamar." — 2 Samuel 13:22 (KJV)

Notice here: Absalom didn't scream, didn't threaten, didn't even confront him. He simply went quiet. No good, no bad. Just nothing. And underneath that nothing, hatred sat for two full years, growing roots.

2 Samuel 13:28-29 (KJV) "Now Absalom had commanded his servants, saying, Mark ye now when Amnon's heart is merry with wine, and when I say unto you, Smite Amnon; then kill him, fear not: have not I commanded you? be courageous, and be valiant. And the servants of Absalom did unto Amnon as Absalom had commanded."

Two years of silence was not peace. It was a planning room. This is what unresolved hate does: it doesn't disappear because you stopped talking about it. It waits for the right moment of vulnerability in someone else, and it strikes.

We tend to think of hate as loud – slurs, violence, open conflict. But scripture is showing us something far more common: quiet hate, the kind that smiles at a family gathering and grieves being forced to sit at the same table.

Proverbs 26:24-26 (KJV) tells us: "He that hateth dissembleth with his lips, and layeth up deceit within him; When he speaketh fair, believe him not: for there are seven abominations in his heart. Whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be shewed before the whole congregation."

Centuries before John would write that hatred and murder share the same root, Solomon was already warning us that hidden hatred rarely announces itself with a frown. It hides behind fair speech, a warm handshake, a kind word offered through gritted teeth. And scripture promises it does not stay hidden forever.

"Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him." — Leviticus 19:17 (KJV)

This is one of the most overlooked verses in scripture, and it gives us the antidote to Absalom's silence. God does not tell us to swallow the offense and smile. He tells us to actually address it — lovingly, honestly, directly — rather than let it turn into hatred behind a closed mouth.

2 Chronicles 24:20-22 (KJV): "And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest... and they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the LORD. Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, The LORD look upon it, and require it."

Zechariah's father, Jehoiada, had rescued Joash as a child and placed him on the throne.

Decades of kindness were forgotten in a single fit of offense, and Joash had the very son of his rescuer stoned to death in the temple courtyard. If hatred could turn a king against the family who saved his life, it can turn any of us against people who once loved us well.

So, today, if there is any among us who has been carrying silence toward someone — a parent, a sibling, a friend who wounded you — now is the time to ask God whether that silence has become something more than distance. Whether it has become a seed. And whether it's time, finally, to rebuke it instead of feeding it.

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