In trying to understand the hatred of God, we must first understand that His ways are not our ways, nor are His thoughts our thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

It must be cemented in our hearts that He is FAR above us, and it is impossible to fully grasp the infinitude of His mind using only our finite minds. The only thing we really need to know is that He, His thoughts, and His ways are beyond our comprehension. Praise His holy name that He reveals anything at all to us!

We would do Him a great injustice by comparing His ways to our own. Here are a couple examples.

Jealousy.

Exodus 20:5 “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;”

Exodus 34:14 “For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:”

Deuteronomy 4:24 “For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.”

There is more Scripture about jealousy, but these should suffice for now.

When we fall into jealousy, we also fall into envy and frequently into hatred. Vengeance is also in the mind of the jealous person.

By contrast, when God is jealous it because of the simple fact that He knows with 100% certainty that He is the best thing for us. He is jealous because He knows, again with 100% certainty, that if we choose anything or anyone other than Him, then we are choosing less than the best. He also knows that eternal life is in Him, and to choose to walk away from Him will only lead to death. When man becomes jealous, it is about self. Jealousy from the Lord, then, is for our benefit … not His own. So, even as it pertains to jealousy, we cannot attempt to understand His jealousy by comparing it to our own.

He is love. We experience love, by He is love itself. The way He loves is so far beyond our comprehension! His love is total and complete while ours waxes and wanes. Our love tends to be conditional, based upon the ever-changing winds and tides of circumstance. Have you noticed that since the perfect love of God entered into your heart that you are now able to love others despite how they treat you? That is how the love of the Lord is.

The same premise applies to hatred. When man falls into hatred, he has fallen into sin. It may seem counter-intuitive, but the hatred of God is pure and sinless, whereas ours is sin itself … murder, specifically.

1 John 2:9, 11 “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.”

1 John 3:15 “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.”

1 John 4:20 “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”

There is no getting around the following verses.

Malachi 1:2-3 “I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.”

Romans 9:13 “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”

But notice the fact that all our Lord said this AFTER Esau died. While still alive, our gracious Father gave Esau every opportunity to repent and return to Him. It was only after he had taken his last breath that the Lord declared His hatred toward Esau.

God certainly loves us, though we are sinners. He loves us because when we are made aware of our sins, our hearts break and we are moved to make reconciliation to Him by way of heartfelt repentance.

But for the heart which has abandoned salvation and blasphemed the Holy Spirit all the way to the day of their death, the Lord’s love will not be there for them. His love will be entirely focused on those who have made the free will decision to submit their lives to Him. And in that love, He will destroy the wicked for the sake of His children. The wicked have chosen to receive the hatred of God because, while alive, they chose to spurn His love.

In the end, the hatred of God must be accepted as truth. We must take it deep into our hearts that, though it is difficult to completely comprehend, the hatred of God is real. Our faith in His perfection ought to lead us to a place that, though He hates, He is perfect and sinless. And we can rest in the assurance that He will reveal the complete truth when we reach the other side of eternity wherein there will be no more enemy to muddy the eyes of our understanding.

And to briefly answer your question of why Satan created the lie … have you ever heard someone say, “I know God loves me and He wouldn’t punish me for _______!” Satan speaks in half-truths and has CONvinced countless dear souls that they can freely sin without a need for repentance simply because God loves them. Yes, God does love them … but without repentance there is no salvation.

-lg

When asked "Does God have an underlying love for those destroyed?"

ANSWER: