The Love God Hates

The absolutely perfect love of God demands an absolutely perfect hatred of those things which are contrary to that love God loves perfectly and he hates perfectly. We love imperfectly and imperfectly, but nonetheless it reflects the shadow of what we see in the perfection of God cast begins a study from first John chapter 2. It's a series with a title that may surprise you.

The love God hates. Now if you attend church for a few weeks even one time you'll probably hear talk of God's love. It's an aspect of his character that Christians gladly celebrate and with good reason with them in case John, I'm wondering why this series. Why do our listeners need to study not only what God loves but also what he hates. While I can answer the question so many ways. But let me just come play off the contemporary Christian culture.

You would think if you listen to all the sentimentalism floating around in the name of Christianity. The God is this loving sort of forlorn beleaguered deities sits in heaven's got all this love and he just wants to dump love on everybody and he wants to love you unconditionally and it doesn't matter how you live and he's just so heartbroken because you don't love him back that that is the ridiculous caricature of God that you can find in many Christian bookstores and in many Christian books libertarian there's another side to God.

He not only loves in the way that the Bible says he loves but he hates he hates he hates with an equal passion equals zeal and equal extent anybody who truly loves, hates, whatever is in opposition to that love hates whatever harms that love God loves and God hates you go through Scripture and you see a list of all the things he hates. Here's the conflicts of those two, there is even a love that God hates, yes. First John 215 will look at that the love that God hates perfect love demands perfect hate stay with us for the series. That's right.

And now friend if you're a bit surprised, maybe even taken aback by the notion of a God who hates you don't want to miss a day of this study.

John's going to show you how God who loves perfectly also hates perfectly and how you can avoid experiencing the wrath of God. Now here's John MacArthur to begin his series. The love God hates first John chapter 2 verses 15 through 17. When we title this particular study the love God hates the love God hates me, just read these three verses so that you have them in mind and then will address this wonderful and helpful portion of Scripture. First John 215 do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the father but is from the world and the world is passing away, and also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God abides forever. Here is the love God hates the love of the world. Now the Bible is clear that God is a God of perfect love. If you look over the first John chapter 4, number of times in this chapter, the love of God is noted verse seven. Let us love one another, for love is from God. Verse eight wanted us in love doesn't know God, for God is love verse 11 beloved of God so loved us, we ought also love one another and in verse 16 we come to know and believe the love which God has for us. God is love and the one who abides in love abides in God and God's abides in him, so there are several verses for in that chapter alone. The tell us that God is a God of love and the love of God, as you well know, is a theme throughout all of Scripture particularly emphasized of course in the New Testament God's love is manifest in common grace and its manifest in redemptive grace. God is a God of perfect love, but because God loves perfectly. He also hates perfectly. The two are actually inseparable to love perfectly is to hate perfectly. That is to say, if you love something you hate whatever threatens that something.

If you love someone you hate whoever threatens that someone in the greater your love, the greater your hatred. The more your affection for what is right, the more your disaffection for what is wrong. That's why Psalm 9710 says hate evil. You who love the Lord and Psalm 119, 104 says from your precepts. I get understanding. Therefore I hate every false way. Pardon me if I hate error because I deserve to be pardoned. It's my love for the truth that causes me to hate that her pardon me if I hate sin. It's my love for righteousness. It makes me hate sin was God's love manifested in Jesus Christ for what was right that may Jesus make a weapon. Cleanse the temple because he hated what he saw what he found in that place that had been turned into a den of thieves Somerset, I love your law, but I hate those who are double minded. I love your law, but I hate those people who vacillate, sometimes showing affection for your lawn.

Sometimes not. Psalm 119 again verse 128 says I esteem all your precepts. So I hate every false way.

Psalm 119, 163. Toward the end of the chapter. I hate and despise falsehood. I love your law that that's just the way it is whatever it is that you love most causes you to hate whatever is contrary to that in the absolutely perfect love of God demands an absolutely perfect hatred of those things which are contrary to that love God loves perfectly and he hates perfectly. We love imperfectly and hate imperfectly, but nonetheless it reflects a shadow of what we see in the perfection of God giving illustration of this from the Old Testament. If you were turned back to the book of Proverbs chapter 6 and verse 16.

God says no one who has a haughty looking American heart will I endure. Isaiah 211 says the proud look of man will be abased in the loftiness of man will be humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day God is going to bring about a judgment day to all who are proud well. In addition to haughty eyes are proud look go back to verse 16 again and you will see that God also hates in verse 17, a lying tongue, God is the God of truth. God hates lies, then you will find in verse 17 God hates hands that shed innocent blood. He hates murderers she hates those who have a cruel disposition of the person who will last and who will wanting that lust so severely kill in order that he may obtain that lust. As James describes it kind of person who takes a life, the kind of person who wreaks havoc on someone else is hated by God and then verse 18 says God hates her heart that devises wicked plans. God hates the devising scheming planning fabricating the turns the heart into the workshop of wickedness God also hates feet that run rapidly to evil, that is to say, not the person who would loosely stumbles into things, not the person who because he's not circumspect or wise or watching trips and falls into some iniquity, but those who purposefully plot and scheme and run to evil. They are in a hurry to fulfill their devising's God hates a false witness in verse 19 waters lies. God hates perjurer's God hates false witnesses who lie in whose lives are destructive of other people and his allies assault justice as well as truth.

Amazingly the universe. 19. God hates one who spreads strife among brothers. God hates troublemakers. People who are divisive in others a certain kind of crescendo going here it seems, on the one hand, that haughty eyes would be the starting point of sin because sin is really a reflection of one's pride and rebellion against God. It proceeds through what we would assume to be the worst of things lying tongue murder. But before we know it, it starts to get into things that are more familiar to us devising wicked plans rushing into sin, lying about someone else bringing damage to them and that seemingly popular sin making trouble by using your mouth to sow discord among brothers are other things God hates God hates divorce. Malachi 216 he says I hate divorce.

Jeremiah 44, three and four says God hates idolatry. Amos 521 says God hates hypocrisy. Revelation 26 and 215 God hates false religion and the reason God hates all these things because they are opposite all the things that God loves all the things that are consistent with his holy nature. There is another thing God hates and that takes us to our passage, God hates the world and he hates those who love the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. So don't love the world, God sets himself against those who love the world. John is giving us a series of tests by which Christians can know their Christians. The objective of his epistle is not to make true Christians doubt.

But to make true Christians trust chapter 5 verse 13. These things are written to you who believe in the name of the son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life epistle was written so you can know not so that you can doubt all you have to do is read what it says and take a look at your life and do a little spiritual inventory and if you match up with the standard, both in terms of doctrinal tests and moral test than you can know that you have eternal life.

So John's theme in the book is to help us to know the same time it's to help us to recognize those who are not in the kingdom. No matter what their claim might be because that was what was plaguing the people to whom John was writing they were being infiltrated by those who claim to be Christians, and yet they denied the true Christ. They denied their sinful condition. They had no manifest obedience they had no love for the brothers and here, in this case, they demonstrated a love for the world. John says when you look at your life, you know that those are not true of you. You pass the doctrinal test to affirm the deity of Christ, you affirm your own sinfulness. You buy your life, manifest obedience to the truth of God and love toward others.

Your different now were still sort of talking about the detest here, because in verse 15 it says if you love the world, the love of the father is not in you. So that constitutes a clear delineation somebody who loves the world, is not a believer doesn't possess the love of God.

It's as if John wants to start at a footnote to the discussion of love by the way, Christians are marked by love. But it's the love of others, and it's not the love of the world now. This again sets them aside from those false Christians remember we talked about the fact that false philosophies and false systems that existed in the time of John in the New Testament time the various extent philosophies of the day as philosophies today have no moral implications.

These were the sort of pre-Gnostic Gnostics, the people with the secret knowledge and it had virtually no impact on how they live their lives. It was an moral kind of belief system and so they continue to love the world. Those people then demonstrate that the love of the father's not in them. In this case, John writes in the form of the command do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone does that. They're not Christians, we could say then that true Christians do not habitually love the world and I think we have to say that look at first John chapter 4 for a moment. Verse five they referring to those outside the kingdom.

They are from the world. Therefore they speak as from the world and the world listens to them. The will recognizes its own language that recognizes its own conversation.

It identifies with them.

Verse six we are from God. He who knows God listens to us, the reader of the world or of God, you either speak the world's philosophy or the word of God. If you're Christian you been delivered from the world turn to chapter 5 the first John verse four whatever or whoever is born of God overcomes the world, overcomes the world what you mean. We've overcome the world. We literally overcome the world.

How this is the victory that has overcome the world. Our faith and who is the one who overcomes the world. But he believes that Jesus is the son of God. When you come to faith in Jesus Christ.

You have just overcome the world. Your faith in Christ has triumphed over the world.

You have moved from loving the world to loving the Lord there mutually exclusive realities in John 1519 Jesus said if you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you, you've overcome the world. You been chosen out of the world. You don't listen to the world. You don't identify with the world. You literally been separated from the world. It's more than a separation.

Look at Galatians chapter 6 and verse 14 Paul says may never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world that is an absolute statement. What is it mean to be crucified. Death the whale is dead to me, and I am dead to the world very very strong language very explicit language very black-and-white in the Ephesians 22 Paul says you formerly walked according to the course of this world you used to love the world you used to be alive to the world used to walk according to the course of the world, formerly no more.

According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as everybody else. We used to be like that.

We used to be in the world of the world love the world listen to the world. The world identified with us. The world accepted us no more. Galatians 614 says were dead to the world and the world is dead to us and so James writes any further interaction with the world is serious James for for you. Adulteresses, that's pretty strong word. Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God.

Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. You got your choice. Your friend of the world or your friend of God. Your not both. Do not both. You can see this then is another element of this test. We are known as true Christians because we have a right view of Christ because they were right view of our own sinfulness. The desperate need for forgiveness where Christians because we have a manifest pattern of obedience in our lives in a manifest love for others that reflects the love of God shed abroad in our hearts. We are also believers because we have no love for the world is in a sense is sort of the final little note on the love test now when we talk about the world when we talking about. This is the compelling question here if you say we don't love the world, what are you saying how are we to understand that were going to find that out before we get too far into this, but there's a very clear indication in the Bible of what Scripture means when it talks about the world. First of all we could be talking about the created order could be looking around and saying well there is the physical world. Is that what this is talking about or what about the human world. Is that what were talking about.

No, neither of those are in view here is something much more invisible in one sentence than that, but I give you little outline will work our way into this as true Christians we cannot, we do not we will not love the world. First of all because of what it is because of what it is in the word world Cosmas's opposite of chaos.

The ordered system helps us to get a grip on what Scripture is talking about. By the way, the word cosmos is used five times in those resources. So it's clearly the theme here were not talking about the physical world were not talking about nature were not talking about the wonder of a sunset or flowers or mountains or streams, and sees in the beauty of God's creation.

God even looked on his creation and said it was good, even in its fallen condition. It still reflects his glory to the degree that it should lead us to give him praise fact we should love this created world for what it is a reflection of the of the glory of God the heavens says some 19 or telling of the glory of God. Their expanse is declaring the work of his hands. Day to day pours forth speech night to night reveals knowledge. In other words, you just go into the universe and the further you go the more it speaks of the wonder and the glory of God is every reason to love the creation to love the Cosmas the order that God has made because it's a reflection of his majestic sovereign infinite mind talks about the orbit that the sun has the son he says is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber rejoices as a strong man to run his course it's rising is from one end of the heavens at circuit to the other end.

Nothing hidden from its heat. We now know because of modern astronomy that not only is the Earth orbiting in its little orbit. Not only is the planetary system in which we live. Moving around the sun in its little solar system. But the sun itself has an orbit that goes from one end of the infinite heaven to the other and drags our solar system with it and that's exactly what some 19 says, and that is in us as a staggering reflection of the mind of God. You go from there to the tiny little microcosm of cellular structure and understand the machinery that God has built into the cell system. It is absolutely staggering to understand the majesty and the glory and the wonder of God in the created order. The order that you see in the created world both in its scientific a microscopic form in its macro form as well as everything in between is reflective of the of the glory and the majesty of God, and we don't ever want to be dead to that when we see them, wonder of creation.

We want to praise the God of creation.

Listen to Psalm 104 bless the Lord, O my soul, oh Lord my God there were very great start clothed with splendor and majesty, covering thyself with light as with a cloak stretching out heaven like a tent curtain delays the beams of his upper chambers in the waters. He makes the clouds his chariot. He walks on the wings of the wind, he makes the winds his messengers, flaming fire, his ministers talking about the lightning bolts. He established the earth on its foundations that it will not totter forever and ever.it's cover it with the deep as with a garment.

The waters were standing above the mountains. I rebuke they fled and at the sound of thy thunder they hurried away. The mountains rose the valleys sank to the place without its establish them without it, set a boundary that they may not pass over that they may not return to cover the earth, that is, God pulled the continents together and put great deep sin to which the seas plunged to stay there permanently that he sent forth springs in the valleys and they flow between the mountains.

They give drink to every beast of the field. The wild donkey quenching their thirst. Beside them the birds of heavens dwell, they lift their voices among the branches.

He waters the mountains from his upper chambers.

That's the rain and the earth is satisfied with the fruit of his works. Psalm 104 goes on from there. He causes the grass to grow for the cattle vegetation for the labor of men and so forth and so forth talks about high mountains and the animals that live there all Lord how many are your works in wisdom you've made them all the earth is full of thy possessions. There is the sea great and broad and which are swarms without number animals, small and great, and so forth.

What is the end of all this. Let the glory of the Lord endure forever. Let the Lord be glad in his works. He looks at the earth and it trembles. He touches the mountains and they smoke. I will sing to the Lord as long as I live I will sing praise to my God while I have my hearing what you praising about about this majesty and creation were not supposed to disdain the created world.

While we are not environmentalists. As such, we are worshipers of the creator. So we talk about not loving the world were not talking about that, and secondly were not talking about people God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. What is that world that God so loved.

It is not the inanimate world is the human world. God love people. He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not the world of people didn't know him, but he loved them. Verse nine of chapter 4. By this, the love of God was manifested in us that he sent his only begotten son into the world so that we might live through him. That is into the human world to the world of men and women will then if it's not the created world is not the human world. What is it it's the invisible spiritual system of evil that is the world that we are not to love is the invisible spiritual system of evil is that that order. That is run by Satan, the prince of the power the air, the spirit that works in the children of disobedience. The one who leads the course of this world is that system. Remember now Cosmas means the system an order as chaos means disorder is that evil order with all of its elements in all of its components that work against the things of God is the world that Jesus spoke of what he said. The world hates you, and it has hated me world that hated Jesus was the world of wickedness. The world of wretchedness, the world of corruption. The system of evil. This is the system that's run by the enemy you're listening to Grace to you with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University in seminary. Today's lesson is part of John study titled the love God hates if you'd like a copy of this series to review on your own or to study with a small group, you can download all four messages free of charge in MP3 or transcript format. You can also get this series in a four CD album to give to a friend to download or purchase John series, the love God hates contact us today to find all of our free resources online@jidety.org and keep in mind the MP3 downloads will have a lot of material that we don't have time to error on the radio. So again to download the sermons or the transcripts go to TTY.or if you'd like John series, the love God hates on CD or the album when you call 855 rings or go to our website TTY.org and as you enjoy this series.

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John MacArthur and the staff. I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for listening today and tune in tomorrow when John looks at how the world tries to influence your thinking and how you can protect your mind be here for another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on grace to you