The Love God Hates

And 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. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. On today's broadcast, John begins a study from 1 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 that being the 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?

Well, I can answer that question so many ways, but let me just kind of play off the contemporary Christian culture. You would think, if you listen to all the sentimentalism floating around in the name of Christianity, that God is this loving, sort of forlorn, beleaguered deity who sits in heaven, and He'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 is the ridiculous caricature of God that you can find in many Christian bookstores and in many Christian books.

Let me tell you, 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, equal 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 can 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, 1 John 2, 15.

We're going to 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, and we've titled this particular study, The Love God Hates...The Love God Hates. Let me just read these three verses so that you have them in mind and then we'll address this wonderful and helpful portion of Scripture. First John 2, 15, 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 to 1 John chapter 4, a number of times in this chapter the love of God is noted. Verse 7, let us love one another for love is from God. Verse 8, the one who doesn't love doesn't know God for God is love. Verse 11, beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. Down in verse 16, we have 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 abides in Him. So there are several verses, four in that chapter alone, that 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 it's 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. And 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 97 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 error. Pardon me if I hate sin, it's my love for righteousness that makes me hate sin. It was God's love manifest in Jesus Christ for what was right that made Jesus make a whip and cleanse the temple because He hated what He saw and what He found in that place that had been turned into a den of thieves. Psalmist said, 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 law and 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's just the way it is. Whatever it is that you love most causes you to hate whatever is contrary to that. And 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.

Let me give you an illustration of this from the Old Testament. If you would turn back to the book of Proverbs, chapter 6 and verse 16, God says, no one who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart will I endure. Isaiah 2.11 says, the proud look of man will be abased and 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, or a 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. He hates those who have a cruel disposition.

The person who will lust and who will wanting that lust so severely kill in order that he may obtain that lust, as James describes it. The 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 a heart that devises wicked plans. God hates the devising, scheming, planning, fabricating that 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 witlessly 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 devisings. God hates a false witness in verse 19 who utters lies. God hates perjures. God hates false witnesses who lie and whose lies are destructive of other people and whose lies assault justice as well as truth. And amazingly at the end of verse 19, God hates one who spreads strife among brothers. God hates troublemakers, people who are divisive. You know, there's a certain kind of crescendoing 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. There are other things God hates. God hates divorce, Malachi 2.16, he says, I hate divorce. Jeremiah 44, 3 and 4 says God hates idolatry. Amos 5.21 says God hates hypocrisy. Revelation 2.6 and 2.15, God hates false religion. And the reason God hates all these things is 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 they're 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 I've written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you may know that you have eternal life. The epistle is 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 tests, then you can know that you have eternal life. So John's theme in the book is to help us to know. At 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 claimed 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. You affirm the deity of Christ. You affirm your own sinfulness. You by your life manifest obedience to the truth of God and love toward others. You're different. Now we're still sort of talking about the test here because in verse 15 it says, if you love the world, the love of the Father's 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 sort of add 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 and the New Testament time, the various extant 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 lived their lives. It was an amoral kind of belief system. And so they continued to love the world. Those people then demonstrate that the love of the Father's not in them.

In this case, John writes it in the form of a 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.

I think we have to say that. Look at 1 John chapter 4 for a moment, verse 5, 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 world recognizes its own language. It recognizes its own conversation.

It identifies with them. Verse 6, we are from God. He who knows God listens to us. You're either of the world or of God.

You either speak the world's philosophy or the Word of God. If you're a Christian, you've been delivered from the world. Turn to chapter 5 of 1 John, verse 4, whatever or whoever is born of God overcomes the world...overcomes the world. Well what do you mean we've overcome the world? We've 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 who 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.

They are mutually exclusive realities. In John 15, 19 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've been chosen out of the world. You don't listen to the world. You don't identify with the world. You have literally been separated from the world.

It's more than a separation. Look at Galatians chapter 6 and verse 14. Paul says, may it 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.

Boy, that is an absolute statement. What does it mean to be crucified? Death. The world is dead to me and I am dead to the world.

Very, very strong language, very explicit language, very black and white. In Ephesians 2, 2 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. You 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's 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 we're 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. Ephesians 6, 14 says we're dead to the world and the world is dead to us. And so James writes any further interaction with the world is serious. James 4, 4, you adulteresses...that's a 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've got your choice, you're a friend of the world or you're a friend of God. You're not both...you're not both.

You can see that this then is another element of this test. We are known as true Christians because we have a right view of Christ, because we have a right view of our own sinfulness and the desperate need for forgiveness. We are Christians because we have a manifest pattern of obedience in our lives and 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. This in a sense is sort of the final little note on the love test. Now when we talk about the world, what are 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?

Well we're 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. We 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 we're talking about? No, neither of those are in view here. There's something much more invisible in one sense than that.

But let me give you a little outline and we'll 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. And the word world, kosmos, opposite of chaos, the ordered system, helps us to get a grip on what Scripture's talking about.

By the way, the word kosmos is used five times in those brief verses, so it's clearly the theme here. We're not talking about the physical world. We're not talking about nature. We're not talking about the wonder of a sunset or flowers or mountains or streams and seas and 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.

In fact, we should love this created world for what it is, a reflection of the glory of God. The heavens, says Psalm 19, are 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.

You have every reason to love the creation, to love the kosmos, the order that God has made because it's a reflection of His majestic, sovereign, infinite mind. It talks about the orbit that the sun has. The sun, He says, is like a bridegroom coming out of His chamber, rejoices as a strong man to run His course. Its rising is from one end of the heavens, its 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 Psalm 19 says, and that is 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 microscopic form and in its macro form, as well as everything in between is reflective of the glory and the majesty of God.

And we don't ever want to be dead to that when we see the wonder of creation, we want to praise the God of creation. Listen to Psalm 104, "'Bless the Lord, O my soul, O Lord my God, Thou art very great, Thou art clothed with splendor and majesty, covering Thyself with light as with a cloak, stretching out heaven like a tent curtain. He lays 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 lightning bolts. He established the earth on its foundations, though it will not totter forever and ever. Thou didst cover it with the deep as with a garment. The waters were standing above the mountains. At Thy rebuke they fled and at the sound of Thy thunder they hurried away. The mountains rose, the valleys sank to the place where Thou didst establish them. Thou didst 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 deeps into which the seas plunged to stay there permanently. And then 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 heaven 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 man, and so forth and so forth.

Talks about high mountains and the animals that live there. Oh 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, in which are swarms without number, animals small and great, and so forth. And 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 being. What are you praising Him about? About this majesty in creation. We're not supposed to disdain the created world. While we are not environmentalists as such, we are worshipers of the Creator. So when we talk about not loving the world, we're not talking about that.

And secondly, we're 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, it is the human world. God loved 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 9 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. Well then, if it's not the created world and it's 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. It is the invisible spiritual system of evil. It is that order that is run by Satan, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that works in the children of disobedience, the one who leads the course of this world.

It is that system. Remember now, kosmos means kosmos means a system, an order, as chaos means disorder. It is that evil order with all of its elements and all of its components that work against the things of God. It is the world that Jesus spoke of when He said, "'The world hates you and it has hated Me.'" The 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 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's series, The Love God Hates, contact us today. You'll find all of our free resources online at gty.org.

And keep in mind, the MP3 downloads will have a lot of material that we don't have time to air on the radio. So again, to download these sermons or the transcripts, go to gty.org. Or if you'd like John's series, The Love God Hates, on CD, you can order the album when you call 800-55-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org. And as you enjoy this series, remember to let us know how John's verse-by-verse teaching is strengthening you and your family. You can send a letter to Grace To You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. You can also email us at letters at gty.org. And if you're an app user, leave us a review in the App Store. I'd also encourage you to get involved by joining the discussion on the Grace To You blog at gty.org. And now for 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.