Psalms 83:16

"Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O LORD." (Christians are instructed to love our enemies, but we are never commanded to love God's enemies. We may not hate any people as people, but as they are opposed to God, to truth, to righteousness, to purity, we may and we must, if we are ourselves right-minded, feel a burning indignation against them. Did you ever read the story of "the middle passage" in the days of the African slave trade, when the Negroes died by hundreds or were flung into the sea to lighten the ship? Did you ever read of those horrors without praying, "O God, let the thunder-bolts of your wrath fall on the men who can perpetrate such enormities"? Such is the spirit of this psalm. But I like best this particular verse because while it breathes righteous indignation against the wicked, it has mixed with it the tender spirit of love. "Cover their faces with shame," prays the psalmist, "but overrule your severity for their everlasting good, so that they will seek your name, O LORD." The worst fate I wish to any without God and without hope in the world is that this prayer may be prayed by honest and loving hearts for them and for others like them).

Charles H. Spurgeon