Earlier, we read the account of the rich, young ruler who came to Christ Jesus one day. He asked: “Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” The Lord answered by taking him to the second half of the Ten Commandments: “Do not kill; do not steal; do not commit adultery.” When the man said he was faithful in keeping these commandments, Jesus took him to the first half, or the first table of the Ten Commandments, which refers to man’s relationship with God. “Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come follow me.” The man walked away that day very sad, because he loved his wealth more than he loved God. You could say that “he HATED the idea of being with and serving the Lord without his money.”
Here in Luke, a lawyer asked Jesus the very same question: “Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” This lawyer was a part of the wicked religious system of the day. He was an expert, not in the laws of Rome; he was an expert in the law of God. But we are told that his was not a sincere question. It was a TRICK; the sort of thing lawyers like to do. “Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replied to him with another question: “What is written in the law? How readest thou?” The man quoted a command found in Deuteronomy 6, which referred to the first table of the Law: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God will all thy heart, and with all thy soul; and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.” Then he touched on the second part of the Commandments: “And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self.” But then he justified his disobedience to the command, by asking, “And who is my neighbor?”
I bring these men to your attention this morning, because neither man LOVED love God. They loved themselves more than they loved Jehovah. They may have had some respect for God; they may have had some sort of fear, but they didn’t love Him. One loved his riches more than he did the Lord who gave him those riches, and he refused to follow Him. The other refused to love his neighbor, even though the God whom he professed to love, told him to do so.
These two converge toward my theme for this morning: “Why doesn’t the world love the God I love.” Or turning that around, “Why does the world HATE the God I love?” Those men might have argued with me, but neither one truly loved the Lord God of heaven and earth. They both probably would have claimed love, and they would have DENIED hating Him. So, did I slander them when I used that word “hate?” Is it fair to say that they both “hated” God? Maybe “love” and “hate” take on new meanings when they are used in relation to the infinite God
In the light of Deuteronomy 6:5 – “Thou shalt LOVE the Lord thy God will ALL thine heart, and with ALL thy soul, and with ALL thy might…” In the light of Deuteronomy 6:5 and the nature of God, in my book, anything less than perfect love IS a form of hatred. The words “I LIKE God” are inappropriate when applied to Jehovah. “I like God,” is a silly statement. “I am FOND of the Lord,” and “I FANCY Jehovah,” are foolish thoughts and statements. No one can “ENJOY God,” unless he absolutely loves Him. Those terms might apply to people, places and things, but not to the Almighty God. Because the Lord raises everything we do to a higher level. There is no relationship among men remotely like any relationship we might have with the Almighty God. Jehovah doesn’t judge what we do as various shades of gray. With Him it is always black and white. We are to love Jehovah with every aspect of our hearts and souls. And to fall short of that kind of love is to hate Him.
So again in that light: “Why do most Americans hate the God that I love?” We might answer that question in a number of ways. We could say that dead people can’t love, and until God quickens dead souls, they can only hate Him. We could talk about man’s love for sin and for the world, which produces a hatred for all things spiritual. We could discuss the fact that man has a natural propensity to hate. To hate is more natural than to love.
We could approach this question from several directions, but today I’d like to begin from the other end. Let me tell you some of the reasons why I love God. And in the process I’ll try to show you why most people hate Him.
I love the Lord because HE FIRST LOVED ME.
That is precisely what the Apostle tells us in I John 4:19 – “We love Him because He first loved us.” I am not being egoistical in any way when I say: “It is because the Lord chose to love me that most Americans hate Him.“ It is because God chose to love only a small part of humanity that the rest of humanity hates Him. It is like the young woman who chose to love a certain young man, agreeing to marry him. Her other suitors might choose to turn on her and to hate her for her choice in love. It is not necessarily logical, but it does happen. And it is far more common in the spiritual sense than in the natural world. Many people hate the God of love, because He has chosen to place His special love only on certain people. Take Israel as another example. Many hate God because He chose to love the children of Jacob.
You see, God’s love is totally uninfluenced by anything outside Himself. It is free, spontaneous and uncaused. The Lord didn’t look at me, and see something in me worthy of His love. There isn’t anything in me for the holy God to love. I am disgusting and repulsive in the light of His holiness. I am certainly no more lovable than any other sinner. The Bible says that “there is no good thing” in me – in any of us.
Jehovah looked at David’s elder brother Eliab and rejected him, telling Samuel, “I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the HEART.” And what does God see in our hearts? “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.” The Lord Jesus essentially said, “When I look into your hearts I see evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness and blasphemies” – Matthew 15:19. In contrast to Eliab, God chose to love David, but it wasn’t a spur of the moment sort of thing. It wasn’t love at first sight. It was love before the first light. God’s love for David began before the beginning of time. In II Thessalonians 4:13 Paul says, “We are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” I can justly turn that verse around to say: “We are bound to give thanks alway to God for choosing to save you, brethren, through the sanctification of the Spirit, because God hath loved you from the beginning.” Jehovah loved Jacob but not his elder brother, Esau; God loved Joseph but not his ten older brothers. And that love aroused hatred in all those brothers. Their hatred against God was expressed in their hatred against David, Jacob and Joseph.
The average American, knows that God does not love him. But many of our neighbors can see that God loves you and me – His saints. And that difference – that love – brings the unloved party to hatred against God.
Why does the world hate God? Because of His sovereign love. Or to put it rather narrowly: the world hates God, because He loves worthless me.
I love God because He has given me THINGS WORTH LIVING FOR – and even DYING for.
The world says – the average American says – “I have a lot of things worth living for.” Some enjoy their jobs, and think they are filling an essential roll in serving humanity or their community. Many so enjoy their sports or video games, they live for quitting time so they can go home to play. Many are so filled with their sins and addictions, they think that those sins are equal to life itself.
Many would say, “I have a wife and family, and I live for them.” That is admirable. There is nothing wrong with that. I wish that every husband, every wife would say that. But 90% of those marriage relationships are going to come to a crashing end in death – and eventually, two deaths. On the other hand, for less than 10% of humanity, death will not be an end; it will be a new beginning. When I die, I will awake in the presence of Christ, where there will be millions of other humble believers. And when a Christian husband joins his Christian wife on the other side of death, life will take on new life. I’m not saying that Christian husbands and wives will live in wedded, connubial bliss for eternity. But they both will enjoy eternal life, together with multitudes of others, in the presence of their Saviour.
I love Christ Jesus, my Saviour, because, among other things, He has given me an eternal hope. And in my case, He has given me confidence that my wife has that same hope. And He has taught me to see that what things were my pride and joy are temporal at best and dung at worst. “What things were gain to me, those I (count but) loss for Christ.” “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.” The suicide rate in this country, and the massive numbers of addictions, prove that many Americans have little real joy or hope in this life. Sadly, they aren’t well informed about what faces them after they kill themselves with their bullets and drugs. If they only knew what the child of God possesses in Christ.
There are Muslims, Hindus and atheists around the world, who are killing Christians. They hate those Christians, because they hate the Saviour of those Christians – the Lord Jesus Christ. Among other things, they hate the way that those Christians approach death. While facing men with guns, or axes, or swords, Christians often continue to sing the praises of Christ. They die with smiles on their faces, knowing they will be with their Saviour and with other saved members of their families. And that kind of hope infuriates those who hate them; intensifying the hatred they have against the Saviour. Godly reaction to persecution breeds persecution. Someone says, “Oh, but we don’t have that kind of problem in this country.” Yes, we do to some degree. People here still hate the God of peace who gives to His special people the ability to be at peace when there is so much that the rest of the world worries about.
I love my God who has given me comfort which the world can’t offer or understand. I have a kind of hope that is inexplicable to the unsaved world. I have you, brothers and sisters in Christ – friends – in a world where friends are few and far between. And there is a jealousy which can create a hatred in the hearts of others who have so little, or who are filled with the empty husks which the world has to offer.
I love the God who has taught me things which world cannot understand or teach.
There are things which He has revealed to me through His Word, which the world absolutely abhors. For example, the atheistic palaeontologist may laugh at my belief fossils prove Elohim created all things. A simple laugh is one thing. But if I press the issue, sharing in a public forum my faith and the facts, that man’s ridicule will quickly reveal his hatred of the Creator. Sinful man doesn’t want a God who must be acknowledged, worshipped and served. So the average American hates my God the Creator, owner and master of Heaven and Earth.
I love the God who has revealed to me that He is so righteous He will destroy His own creation. I know He will renovate His creation with fire, because He has revealed it in His Word. And He has done it before, but at that time it was with water. Genesis 6 describes a world filled with many millions of people, most of whom hated God. Jehovah chose to love one man, and upon that man He bestowed His saving grace. The Lord showed Noah and his sons how to build an ark to the saving of their household. Then that hated God poured out his wrath on millions of others, whom He did not choose to love. And today, those who are not loved by Him, hate that wrathful, “judgmental” God. They think that a God who is love ought to be able to put up with a bit of sinful fun and rebellion. But the God of love, loves righteous more than He does wickedness and the sinners who commit wickedness He saves only those whom He unilaterally loves. The world hates this kind of God – the God that I love.
And most of the world hates a God who is in sovereign control of all things. Again, that is the God I love. I used to be my own god, or at least I thought I was. I used to think that whatever decisions I made were entirely my own. And I was okay with living with the consequences. What a fool I was back then. My divine trinity was “me, myself and I.” Like most teenagers, I pictured myself as invincible – in complete control of my personal destiny. In my ignorance, little did I know that the world and the devil had more to say about me than I did. But then the Holy Spirit taught me that in my sinful, depraved condition I was nothing but a slave. He taught me that God can squish the world, the flesh, the devil and me more easily then I can step on ant. Over time, I learned to love the fact that God governs all things to the pleasing of Himself alone. I love the God who takes orders from no man, not even myself. And that is a God, worthy of my love.
Furthermore, the Lord has taught me that He alone is God. That is a lot more than a title. I love the God whom King David loved. When David was stepping down from the throne in I Chronicles 29, he “blessed the Lord before all the congregation and said, Blessed be thou, LORD God of Israel our father, for ever and ever. Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all.” John Owen once wrote: “He who is God, can no more NOT be God, than he who is not god can BE God.” That’s a cute way of saying – the God I love is God absolute – there is nothing and no one who is above Him in power or authority.
The God I love has said, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” – Isaiah 46:10. The world hates the One who is on the throne of the universe, directing all things and working all things “after the counsel of His own will” – Ephesians 1:11. The world hates Psalm 135:6 which says, “Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places.” Most Americans hate Psalm 115:3 which says, “Our God is in the heavens; he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.” But that is a verse and a God which I love. There are dozens of scriptures which say these things, and I love them.
These were not facts which I reasoned out intellectually; these are not conclusions I made by myself. I love the God who revealed them to me through His Word. This is another reason I love Him. God who is so infinitely higher than the smartest man or woman on earth, chose to reveal Himself to dummies like me, through His written Word. Miraculously, over hundreds of years and using dozens of different penmen and prophets, God has given the Bible to anyone who is interested in reading it. It is not only 100% accurate in what it says, it is living in the sense that it is applicable to every society. It warns rebels; it rebukes atheists; it condemn sinners; it comforts the broken-hearted.
And even though it speaks to a variety of people in every country, in every century and in every culture, it is unflinchingly immutable – like its divine Author. I love the Bible and the God of the Bible, because they never change. But that is another reason the world hates them both. Most Americans hate the Bible because they hate the truth, and they hate God for the same reason. The Devil, and his people, want the Bible to change, and they have tried to force it into changing from since before the third century. If someone doesn’t like what the Bible says about him, it is guaranteed to fester into hatred for the Lord.
The world hates, but I love the God who put a mirror up to my face and told me that I was a sinner.
The world doesn’t want to hear that it is full of putrefying sin, and that the divine HAZMAT team is on its way. The average sinner hates to hear: “ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” The average American hates to hear: “The WAGES of sin is DEATH,” get ready to eternally die. The world covers its ears when Revelation 20:15 is read straight out of the heart of God – “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake fire.” The world says that it hates a God would create an eternal lake of fire for the punishment for the wicked. It would much prefer the creation of a mythological purgatory were a few years in torment would purge away our few sins. But the God I love has not created such a place.
As I said earlier, with the God I love, things are black and white, not fifty shades of gray. We are all either children of God or children of hell; there is no child of purgatory. We are all either eternally forgiven or eternally condemned. There are no temporary “maybes.” We either love God with all our hearts, all our souls, with all our minds and with all our hearts, or we despise God.
I love the God who sent His only begotten Son into the world to die delivering me from my sin. I love him and thank Him, for giving to me faith to trust Christ’s sacrifice for me. I love him and praise Him for breaking my stubborn heart, giving to me the repentance necessary to bow before him. I love him because He first loved me; enabling me to love Him in return.
You may be saying this morning that you think that you love God. Are you willing to judge that perception? Are you willing to put it to the test? “Sell all thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come follow Him.” For a moment, forget the first part of the verse and reply to the last: Will you humbly repent and come to Christ? Will you this morning, “love the Lord thy God will all thy heart, and with all thy soul; and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.”