Wise Words: God Hates

May 25, 2014

Wise Words

God Hates

Proverbs 6:16-19

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Introduction

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The Bible is God’s love story to us.

• In it we learn of His love for us.
• We learn that He cares for us.
• We learn that we need to know this affection.

We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19

...casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7

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Jesus, in His ministry, told a parable (Luke 15) about this love.

• A young man demanded his inheritance.
• His dad doesn’t think its the best idea but he relents.
• For the son, all is fun as long the money was there but when it ran out things were different.
• All the friends disappeared, and he found himself wanting to eat with the pigs.
• He decides to go home and ask to be a servant in his fathers house.
• Apparently, the Pharisees had a different version of the story that we find:
• In their version the father would not have taken the son back, he would have had to earn back his status as a son.
• In the Bible, the father welcomes him home and throws him a party.
• The father’s grace and mercy restores the son...
• That’s our God:
• The God of scripture
• The God Jesus came to proclaim
• The God of love and compassion

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Yet, there are other scriptures that tell us about a God who…”hates!”

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Text

16 There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: 17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, 19 a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. Proverbs 6:16-19

Scripture tells us that there are a lot of different things that God hates:

• Divorce, the killing of children, pride, arrogance, evil behavior, perverse speech
• We could go on and on about things that He hates.

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How is this reconciled?

• Some have suggested that there are two different and distinct God’s in the Bible.
• There is an OT God and a NT God.
• There is a word in the Bible to describe this…heresy (false teaching)!

Lesson

God HATES evil and scripture says those that practice it.

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• But isn’t the proverbs, “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.
• That’s not entirely true.

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Proverbs 3:32 “...for the devious person is an abomination to the Lord, but the upright are in his confidence.”

Psalms 5:5 “The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers.”

Psalms 11:5 “The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.”

Jesus wasn’t exactly keen on some people

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.” Mt. 23:27

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Why does God hate evil and those that practice it?

• People do hateful things:

Eyes are haughty - prideful and arrogant people

Have lying tongues - they deceived people

Hand shed innocent blood - like the senseless violence we see today

Hearts devise wicked schemes - like the people in the days of Noah

Feet rush to evil - can’t wait to do evil and bad things

False witnesses - well, we already knew they had lying tongues

Stir up dissension - we call that “drama”

• God HATES these things and all those that do these sorts of things.

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There are two reasons why God hates this:

1. These people hated Him first.

• In Ex. 20 God is explaining His punish...was to those who “...Hate me”
• If we are going to hate God by living lawless lives we need to expect HIm to push back.

2. What is done to others.

• Look at the list from Proverbs 6 again…
• These are actions against other...who were made in the image of God!

Action Step

Does this apply to us?

• CONSIDER the following verses:

(Advance Slide #11)

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Gal. 5:19-21

• Bible Bowl question…”Who was Paul writing to?”
• CHRISTIANS! (that means us)
• What Paul is doing here is giving Christians a warning.
• “I hate sin!” and “There is a danger for those that practice it!”

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• “those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” - vs. 21

God does not want this!

• God HATES the sin, and all evidence it indicates that He also hates those that practice the sin.
• But this doesn’t mean that He needs to like this situation!

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• God loves us and does not want us to be under His wrath!

Conclusion

How can God undo all the damage that is a result of all my bad decisions?

• The real question is not “How can He” it is “How did He?”

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And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— Eph. 2:1-5

• You were dead
• Your nature was an “object of wrath”
• We have nothing to offer!

Through His great love...He made us alive!