2007-11-05 - The Only Thing God Hates

Psalm 119:128, "I hate every false way."

It is easy for us to make friends with sin. It is not infrequent that we sadly find that we have found sin to be a better cohort, than those things that would serve us much better. Sin is the only thing that God hates. I have given a little thought to that statement, and I do think that it is true. Sin is the only thing that God hates. I have considered many things that God might hate, but they all come back to sin. Maybe the most obvious one we might think of is Satan. Does God hate Satan? I will not really argue the point one way or another, except to say that, it seems, that what God hates about Satan is his rebellion (his sin) from God. It may be that God hates Satan, but if that is true, it is true because of Satan's sin.

God hates sin. Sin is defiance on the part of the sinner. All sin is giving God "the finger," and saying that we will live our way and not His way. I'm not sure how to state that more plainly. We are all too prone to have our darling sins. We coddle our Delilahs, and though our sin hurts and harms us every time, we return - much like Samson returned to Delilah - to that which is to our undoing. The Christian knows by experience that sin is the greatest evil in the world. It is sin that brought Jesus Christ to the cross. Is it any wonder that God hates sin? It is sin that damns the souls of men, and the fallen angels. It is sin that shuts Heaven's doors. It is sin that poured the foundation of Hell. Do we wonder, at all, that God hates sin? When the Christian considers the results in his/her own life, experienced by pride, unbelief, worldliness, lust, substance abuse, and the flesh, he/she can only determine that a loving God must hate sin.

"Therefore, I hate every false way,... Psalm 119:104. Let us make it the steadfast resolution of our hearts not to transgress God's way. Every way that is contrary to God is a false way. We will fail in our resolution to hate every false way, because sin still has roots in us, but it must be our resolution to seek to set aside those ways that oppose God. One old saint is on record as saying that he would rather leap into a bonfire than willfully sin against God. We ought to cultivate the mindset of Basil, who, when threatened with imprisonment, banishment, or even death by Valens, replied, "Threaten your boys with such fray-bugs, and your purple gallants, that give themselves to their pleasures; I am resolved neither menaces, nor flatteries shall silence me, or draw me to betray a good cause, or a good conscience."

It is the same resolution we find in Daniel 3 from Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who reply to Nebuchadnezzar, "Let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up,: Daniel 3:18. It is such resolution we must have ourselves. All sin is, at the heart, idolatry. Let us forsake all sin. Sin makes us ineffective and weak Christians. It makes a god of ourselves, and it dishonors the God we profess to seek to honor.

Soli Deo Gloria,
T-

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