The Ways of the World: The Jarring Hatred of God

Introduction

I hate with all of my heart because of what I love with all of my heart. True love necessitates hate because true love will not tolerate any threat to what is loved. A few weeks ago, Gracie came home from school, and she was hurt because some others in her class had made fun of her. I guess every parent that has ever lived has probably experienced the same thing in one fashion or another, and, you know, it just makes you crazy. We probably all view our kids better than reality, but I just couldn’t stand the thought of this loving, little girl that’s always making cards and wanting to make others feel good getting hurt. I hated it.

Now, I know that a wise parent doesn’t intervene and equips their children to deal with hardship and meanness on their own. But, I wanted to. I wanted to have a come to Jesus meeting. I wanted to plot out a battle strategy like Douglas MacArthur. I love Gracie so fiercely, so intensely that I hate anything that can hurt her. This morning, we’re going to see that this same thing is true about God. In fact, it originates in him. We’re going to see that God, who is love, hates.

God’s Word

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The Jarring Hatred of God

v. 16 “There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him” There is hatred in God, and that is a jarring message for ‘only God can judge me’ society. This revelation in the Bible has caused more than one professing Christian to believe it their responsibility to attempt to save the Bible from itself by explaining away the hatred of God or by dismissing the authority and inerrancy of the Bible outright. You see, the love of God is an appealing message to sinners, offering grace for every transgression, but the holiness of God is offensive. We can’t hear enough about a God that forgives and a God that gives us nice things, but we can’t stand the thought of a God who finds sex outside of marriage, greed, and gossip intolerable. We want see God as being the Divine Grandpa of the sky whose love will compel him to tolerate anything He finds in us; yet, the love of God apart from the holiness of God wouldn’t be worth much. It is the holiness of God, his blinding moral purity, that assures us that his love for us is perfect and untainted the way that human love is. But, it is his holiness, his love of what is truly good and truly right and truly glorious that necessitates his hatred. It is his love of what is good that necessitates his hatred of what is evil. It is his love of what is life-giving that necessitates his hatred of what destroys life. It is his love of what brings him true glory that necessitates his hatred of that which robs his glory or lessens it. The holiness of God means that God hates as perfectly as He loves. Holy hatred flows from divine love.

There is hatred in God, and that is a jarring message for ‘only God can judge me’ society. This revelation in the Bible has caused more than one professing Christian to believe it their responsibility to attempt to save the Bible from itself by explaining away the hatred of God or by dismissing the authority and inerrancy of the Bible outright. You see, the love of God is an appealing message to sinners, offering grace for every transgression, but the holiness of God is offensive. We can’t hear enough about a God that forgives and a God that gives us nice things, but we can’t stand the thought of a God who finds sex outside of marriage, greed, and gossip intolerable. But, though we as Christians and churches typically default one way or the other, the Bible teaches that God is holy and God is love. He is both, and they work together to form the true Gospel, not a gospel in our own image. In fact, the love of God apart from the holiness of God wouldn’t be worth much. It is the holiness of God, his blinding moral purity, that assures us that his love for us is perfect and untainted the way that human love is. But, it is his holiness, his love of what is truly good and truly right and truly glorious that necessitates his hatred. It is his love of what is good that necessitates his hatred of what is evil. It is his love of what is life-giving that necessitates his hatred of what destroys lives. It is his love of what brings him true glory that necessitates his hatred of that which robs his glory or lessens it. The holiness of God means that God hates as perfectly as He loves. Holy hatred flows from divine love.

There is hatred in God, and that is a jarring message for ‘only God can judge me’ society. This revelation in the Bible has caused more than one professing Christian to believe it their responsibility to attempt to save the Bible from itself by explaining away the hatred of God or by dismissing the authority and inerrancy of the Bible outright. You see, the love of God is an appealing message to sinners, offering grace for every transgression, but the holiness of God is offensive. We can’t hear enough about a God that forgives and a God that gives us nice things, but we can’t stand the thought of a God who finds sex outside of marriage, greed, and gossip intolerable. We have a distorted view of ourselves and a distorted view of God, which leads to a distorted view of love and a distorted view of hate. Our most natural instinct is that we are basically good and God just helps us realize the full reality of our goodness; yet, describes us as enemies of God, who are wicked to our very core. We want see God as being the Divine Grandpa of the sky whose love will compel to tolerate anything He finds in us; yet, the Scriptures say that on the Last Day liars, slanderers, gossips, and the sexually immoral will be cast into a lake of fire. The love of God apart from the holiness of God wouldn’t be worth much. It is the holiness of God, his blinding moral purity, that assures us that his love for us is perfect and untainted the way that human love is. But, it is his holiness, his love of what is truly good and truly right and truly glorious that necessitates his hatred. It is his love of what is good that necessitates his hatred of what is evil. It is his love of what is life-giving that necessitates his hatred of what destroys lives. It is his love of what brings him true glory that necessitates his hatred of that which robs his glory or lessens it. The holiness of God means that God hates as perfectly as He loves. Holy hatred flows from divine love.

Those who place “themselves” ahead of “others”.

v. 17 “haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood” As get to verses 17-19, Solomon clarifies the hatred of God by giving details of those who will receive his hatred. When he says six things the Lord hates, and then seven in the very next line, one of the things he’s aiming to communicate with that formula is that this is not an exhaustive list. This is not all that God hates, but God hates these things and others like them. We’ll see three recipients of the hatred of God (headline), and then specific examples of each. The first recipient of God’s hatred are those who place “themselves” ahead of “others”. God hates the heart that is always elevating its value and its needs and its wants ahead of the value, needs, and wants of others.

God hates those who love “themselves” most.

Those who look down on others

v. 17 “haughty eyes” In verses 16-17, he starts with the eyes and then works his way all the way down to the feet. The infection of sin, the love of sin, the pleasure of sin infects a person all the way through from the top to the bottom. The first specific example we see of that is when he says ‘haughty eyes.’ That is, God hates those who love “themselves” most. These are people who look down others so that they can be impressed with themselves. The person with haughty eyes views others through their weaknesses and themselves through their strengths. As they look to others, they are always tearing them down in their minds while at the same time they’re building themselves up. They love the comparison game, and play it all the time. And, they love it because they win every comparison, or if they don’t, they have a good reason why. They meet someone they graduated with, and they immediately start measuring themselves up. “I’m thinner, live in a better neighborhood, and look at how much better behaved my kids are.” The haughty person’s first reflex when they meet another person is not how to make Jesus look good, but how to make themselves look good. It’s as though they are their own VP of PR rather than an ambassador for Christ. And, they love themselves most, and God hates it.

In , we get the Beatitudes, which are quite literally the opposites of what we’re reading here. It’s the very characteristics that God loves. And, the very first one on the list says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Nothing is more anti-gospel than self-promotion. Jesus came in the form of a servant and humbled himself. He who deserved all recognition, all praise, all exaltation made himself low so that we might be raised up with him. There is no person that is less like Jesus, less glorifying to Jesus than the person who believes themselves to be better than others.

In , we get the Beatitudes, which are quite literally the opposites of what we’re reading here. It’s the very characteristics that God loves. And, the very first one on the list says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Nothing is more anti-gospel than self-promotion. Jesus came in the form of a servant and humbled himself. He who deserved all recognition, all praise, all exaltation made himself low so that we might be raised up with him. There is no person that is less like Jesus, less glorifying to Jesus than the person who believes themselves to be better than others. You can’t look down on others and up to Jesus at the same time.

APPLICATION: You can’t look down on others and up to Jesus at the same time. So, How do you view others when you meet them? Do you see what’s wrong, or do you see what’s right? Do you win the comparison? The way you see others says something about the way that you see yourself and, ultimately, the way that you see God.

God hates those who lie so that others look “worse” while they look “better”.

v. 17 “lying tongue” The next specific example that he gives is: God hates those who lie so that others look “worse” while they look “better”. If you stop to think about it, every lie ever told boils down to one of these two motives. There’s no other reason to tell a lie. You either lie so that others will be that you are better than you really are, or you lie so that others appear worse than they really are. You cut strokes in golf so that you look like a better golfer. You cheat on your test at school because you want to look like a better student than you really are and you want to receive better scholarships than you really deserve. Or, we lie about others so that they will look worse. Nobody calls it gossip when you brag on someone for doing well. It’s gossip when you cause others to think less of them, and it’s a lie when you exaggerate it so that it’s worse than what is real. In fact, it’s slander. The only reason that you exaggerate what your ex has done or what someone else has said is because you want to them to think less of that person that you might look better in comparison.

And, God hates it. When we lie, we are competing with God for worship. Like Satan in the Garden lying to Eve or in the wilderness lying to Jesus, we’re lying so that we might get ahead and raise our stature so that others will exalt us in their minds. Whenever we lie so that we look better than we really are, we are concealing how good God really is. The truth is we do come up short, but God always comes through. We do let others down, but God is always faithful. And so, when we lie so that others might think we didn’t come up short when we did or that we didn’t fail when we did or that we were faithful when we weren’t, then we are tempting them to take their gaze off of God and praise us.

God Loves Our Deflected Glory

And, God hates it. When we lie, we are competing with God for worship. Like Satan in the Garden lying to Eve or in the wilderness lying to Jesus, we’re lying so that we might get ahead and raise our stature so that others will exalt us in their minds. Whenever we lie so that we look better than we really are, we are concealing how good God really is. The truth is we do come up short, but God always comes through. We do let others down, but God is always faithful. And so, when we lie so that others might think we didn’t come up short when we did or that we didn’t fail when we did or that we were faithful when we weren’t, then we are tempting them to take their gaze off of God and praise us.

APPLICATION: God loves it when we deflect glory. Living for the good of others and the glory of God at the expense of yourself points to Christ. If you build up your brother rather than tear him down, you don’t look worse. Christ looks better! Christ came so that sinners might be better off than they were without him. So, when you build up rather than tear down, you are showing that the reign of Christ is spreading. And, when Christ came, He deflected glory to his Father, taking the form of a servant and dying a humiliating death. If you will just tell the truth about yourself, even though it is humiliating, even though you may not come out looking better, you’ll be following in the steps of Jesus. You’re deflecting glory away from your Facebook perfection, causing others to despair over their own failures, to the unrelenting, awe-inspiring, holy perfection of God himself.

God hates those who believe they’re more “valuable” than others.

‘hands that shed innocent blood’ The final specific example that he gives of God’s hatred for those who place themselves above others is ‘hands that shed innocent blood.’ That is, God hates those who believe they’re more “valuable” than others.. You can only kill an innocent person by devaluing them. You have to see a person for less than they are to take their life without cause. There have been time throughout history and there are now places around the world in which this devaluing of human dignity is unapologetic and profound. Nazi Germany disposed of the Jews and propagated the arian race as a necessary requirement for true human evolution. They were convinced that one race was superior to another; thus, they sought to eliminate the other, though they were innocent. The same can be said of lynchings throughout the civil rights era as white supremacists devalued African Americans, lynching them in opposition to integration. And, perhaps no greater example in all of human history, than the abortion of our pure and innocent children before they are even taken from the womb. They have never lied, never wounded, never sinned, and yet, they are struck from this world as though they do not bear God’s image.

APPLICATION: Maybe you’d say, “I’ve never murdered an innocent person,” but hidden in the deep crevices of your heart, could you find places where you find yourself to be more valuable than someone else? Maybe, you’d never say it, but you know it’s there. Do you find yourself looking down upon another race as though they are lesser than you? Do you find yourself looking upon another generation, maybe they’re far younger or maybe they’re far older than you, and being filled with resentment toward them? Do refugees fill expendable to you? Jesus says that if you have anger in your heart then you’ve already committed murder. Is there someone that has sinned against you or provoked your anger in a way that has stirred up a hatred in your heart so that you wish that bad things would happen to them, as though they are of lesser value? God loves when we see others as more valuable than ourselves. Jesus laid down his life for us who were of lesser value than He so that we might realize our full value in God’s Kingdom. What will you do? What will you let live in your heart and mind? Will you seek to uncover the value of others, or will you strike them down in your heart every chance you get?

Those who love their “sin” more than “God”.

v. 18 “a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make hast to run to evil” The second recipient of God’s hatred that we see is in verse 18. God hates those who love their “sin” more than “him”. You’ll notice two sides of the same coin. First of all, they “premeditate” their sin. They aren’t sinning out of a rush of emotion or in the heat of the moment; they are putting in forethought, pre-planning into doing what they know God hates.

A Coup of the Heart

At the turn of the 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte returned home to France from his military campaign in Egypt with one thing in mind: power. France was ruled at the time by a five member Directory, and he wanted to consolidate power to himself. He staged a coup, using his considerable military prowess and surging popularity, to upend the Directory and ultimately become emperor of a French empire. This is what it means to wake up with a plan to sin. It’s to stage a coup in your heart to overthrow King Jesus. It’s a planned rebellion against God -- a coup d’ etat of the reign of God in your life.

Premeditated sin is the most disgusting type. It’s a decisive rejection of God’s love, God’s wisdom, and God’s will. It’s not a heat of the moment, passion of lusts decision. Rather, it is a thoughtful, intentional, decisive choice of the will. It’s an insult to the goodness of God. A plan away from the will of God is a declaration that you believe that the will of God is oppressive. It is to declare that sin is a kinder master. It’s one thing to loose control in the heat of the moment, to capitulate to the passions of the flesh, against your intentions and against your plans to honor God; it’s quite another to love sin and desire sin so deeply that you plan on it. To plan sin is to believe that sin has more to offer you than God. It is to love the sin so much that that you would decisively abandon God for it.

APPLICATION: Are you planning to sin today? Like the thief casing a house, are you contriving a way to abandon the will of God and justify yourself? Do you already have a date with your computer or a mistress looking for your call? Are you excited about a drunken party or cheating the time-clock at work? Are you readying yourself to overthrow the reign of God in your life because you are more excited about your sin than, more in love with your lusts than his glory?

They Follow Through “Quickly”

v. 18b “feet that make haste to run to evil” But, you’ll notice that these recipients of God’s hatred don’t premeditate their sin. They Follow Through “Quickly” They are thrilled by their plans, exhilarated by the thought of what they want to do. They aren’t hesitant or reluctant. They’re eager. Eager to abandon the Lord. Eager to reject his way. Eager to reject his will.

APPLICATION: Haste is the pace of deception. Sin would be seen as irrational with time. A true cost analysis of sin always shows that sin costs far too much and pays out far too little. It charges a high price and then shortchanges the payout. Who in their right mind would choose the cheap thrill of a computer over the integrity of their marriage or the beauty of their wife? Who thinking rationally would really decide to pay on a single meal every month for three years? With time, foolishness, sin is irrational. If you could think clearly, you’d know that lies get you into trouble, induce anxiety. They don’t eliminate it. This why Paul tells us to follow Joseph’s example and flee sexual immorality. Do the opposite of the fool! Don’t run toward the sin that will destroy you. Run to the God that will save you. That’s what God loves. God loves is when we run to him rather than to sin. Flee sin into the refuge of God! Run from the lies of sin into the love of God.

Those who “tear down” what should be “built up”.

v. 19 “a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers” In verse 19, we see the final recipient of God’s hatred: Those who “tear down” what should be “built up”. You’ll notice a bit of a shift in verse 19. Verses 17-18 really outline those things that are in or a part of the individual. Verse 19 is really focused upon what happens in the life of the broader community. That is, God is concerned with how your life impacts those around you, particularly among his people. And, when your sin brings harm to the covenant community, God hates it. Jesus said that ‘if anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for him to tie a millstone around his neck and jump into the sea and drown.’ God takes his people seriously.

God hates those who tear down “reputations” that they should build up.

v. 19a ‘a false witness who breathes out lies” God hates those who tear down “reputations” that they should build up. This is lying, but on a bigger scale. It’s lying in a public forum so that someone is ruined. This is a lie that damages someone’s livelihood, false statements that can cost someone their lives or their freedom. It’s perjury in the courtroom and slander in the church. You can imagine how much God hates this particular one. It’s the very thing that led to the murder of his Son. The chief priests brought Jesus before the crowd and incited them against him. They brought false witnesses that lied to say that Jesus did things that He did not do and said things that He did not say until ultimately the crowd was shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

APPLICATION: Whose reputation have you crucified? Who have you roused the crowd against? Whose honor have you damaged? Whose livelihood have you damaged? Oh, it was your words that nailed Jesus to the cross!

God hates those who “divide” brothers they should “defend”.

v. 19b ‘one who sows discord among brothers’ Solomon intends for the end of verse 19 to be the culminating point. When he starts with the number six in verse 16, but then lands on the number seven, he’s wanting us to see that all of the rest culminate into this one overarching point. What does God hate supremely? What is it that God finds utterly detestable? God hates those who “divide” brothers they should “defend”.

APPLICATION: God detests division. Ultimately, every, single hatred mentioned is a seed of division that is sown to the destruction of God’s Kingdom. I want you to think about the church’s that you’ve known to crumble. Think about the marriages that you know that have failed. Think about the friendships that are no more. You will doubtlessly find yourself unable to find a single case where one or more of these seeds of division weren’t sown. How many marriages have ended because you have either a husband, a wife, or both who place themselves ahead of the other? They have haughty eyes and a lying tongue and resent bubbling beneath the surface. How many churches have come apart at the seams because of a membership that loves their sin more than they love God? They staged a coup in their church in which the ways of God were overthrown for the desires of their hearts. They hastily ran after everything they could except God himself. How many friendships have been destroyed by those who tear down what should be built up? They damage the reputation of another. They tell publicly what has been confided privately and destroy a man, a brother, a sister in the process.

APPLICATION: God hates everyone of these seeds of division because, ultimately, the divide us from Him. He desires for us to be his children, and yet it’s these very realities that make us his enemy. Who here can say they haven’t found every, single one of these things true in their lives? Who here can say they haven’t lived a life that God hates? You might say, “I’ve never shed innocent blood.” But, don’t you know? Your sin nailed Christ, the innocent Son of God, to the cross. Your mouth shouted curses at him. Your hands hammered the nails into his hands and feet. You see, God hates the divisive, but He loves the Peacemaker. Jesus endured the hatred of God so that we might enjoy the love of God. There was nothing in Jesus that God hated, but He took what He hated in us and credited it to Jesus. And, He took everything in Jesus that He loved, and credited it to us. On the cross, God aimed his hatred at his Son so that He could aim his love at you, that you might become his son.

Discussion Questions:

How does God’s love necessitate his hatred?

What can we do if we tend to be self-centered to ‘count others more significant that ourselves’ ()? What does valuing others most look like?

Why do we lie to make ourselves look better? What risks come with telling the truth, and how does an eternal perspective help?

What does premeditated sin say about our love of God?

Why does God hate division so fiercely? What is the difference between peacemaking () and peace-keeping?