Does God Hate Sinners?

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.  Here is this week’s question: Dear Brother Hunt and Brother McMahon, Quite often I hear my fellow believers say “God loves the sinner, yet hates the sin.”I used to say that myself until someone challenged me by quoting Psalm:5:5The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.
See All..., “The foolish shall not stand in thy sight.Thou hatest all workers of iniquity.”They also added, “Jacob I loved, Esau I hated.”Now I’m confused.Does God truly hate sinners?I thought he sent his Son to die for them.

Tom:

Dave, there’s a tough one.

Dave:

It is a tough one.I’ll let you answer this one Tom.

Tom:

Okay, then you want eight minutes of dead air space, right?No Dave, I defer to you on this one. Go for it.

Dave:

Well, I guess—

Tom:

I might throw in an idea or two.

Dave:

I guess we have to believe what the Bible says don’t we?He hates the workers of iniquity.On the other hand, he loves the sinner, but he hates their evil and he hates what they do and that has to be related to who is doing it.But the Bible very rarely says this.You have to look hard to find such verses.How evil was Israel?Idolatrous, rebellious, just going into wickedness, even more wicked than the nations God displaced.This is what he says.And yet he sends his prophets and he pleads with them.He calls them his spouse, I love you, please repent, I don’t want to judge you and punish you and he does it generation after generation he’s pleading with them.So, on the one hand, yes God is angry.Another scripture you could add, God is angry with the wicked every day, but at the same time he loves the world.“God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son….”So now I can’t pit one scripture against another.It does say that he loves the sinners, but he hates the sin.At the same time—

Tom:

Dave, where does it say that?I’ve looked for that and I can’t find it.

Dave:

Well it doesn’t say that in so many words.In other words, there is no verse that says that.

Tom:

I was just getting on your case a little.

Dave:

That’s okay Tom.

Tom:

Because I’m still wrestling with God—

Dave:

“God helps them who help themselves”?

Tom:

And “cleanliness is next to godliness,” but anyway, I’m sorry, go ahead.

Dave:

Well those are a little bit different Tom.Although again, there is some wisdom.He does help those that help themselves.I mean I can give you verses for that.“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you.”

Tom:

But the original is in—

Dave:

I know it’s Ben Franklin.

Tom:

Poor Richard’s Almanac.

Dave:

Yes, but—

Tom:

But back to this Dave. Certainly people who have not only rebelled but are dead set against what God does, their works are an outworking as we’ve said, “…the heart is evil above all things, desperately wicked, who can know it?”I think there’s a point in somebody’s life that he’s so committed and so hardened to God that you have to allow a verse like this.Nevertheless, as you said, God has become a man to pay the penalty for those sins, for whatever a person does or may do, God has it covered.Yet they’re not willing.

Dave:

Well you put your finger on it Tom.When someone is so incorrigible that there is no hope, then the scripture says, “My spirit will not always strive with man.”Now if man has no will, if God can just elect him and cause him and decide who’s going to go to heaven and who’s going to go to hell and this is all there is to it, then God doesn’t need to strive with man.And if man is not only a moral corpse, but you know, he can’t even believe the gospel, or can’t turn to God at all until he is regenerated as some people teach.Then there is no striving.You wouldn’t strive with someone who’s been predestined to heaven and who God will cause to believe the gospel by supernaturally regenerating them.You certainly wouldn’t strive with someone who God has predestined to go to hell.So there is a genuine choice that man has.But the Bible indicates that when man crosses a certain line you know, there’s a point where there is no more pleading; there is no more striving with this person—

Tom:

Dave would this relate to the Canaanites?The iniquity—their iniquity had reached such a point that God said hey, go in, take them out?Now that doesn’t happen a lot.I mean it did in a particular case, but—

Dave:

It happened at Sodom and Gomorrah.Of course, they were part of the Canaanites before this other destruction under Israel happened.I think we would have to say yes, that was the case and he hates those people because they will not turn; they will not repent and they are in defiance against God.Tom, I guess you could kind of relate it to September 11^th.Since September 11^th the new mantra in America is “God bless America”.God bless America just because the Twin Towers went down.Why is God going to bless America?We flaunt our evil in his face, we kill babies by the millions in the womb, we have our gay pride parades and flaunt our perversion, and we export our pornographic films and so forth to the world.And now suddenly God will bless America.I saw that in front of a adult movie theater place you know.They’ve got pornographic films and naked women dancing and they are enticing people to come in, but out in front they had “God bless America”.Well yes, God loves the sinner.He hates the sin, but it comes to a point where the people they are doing it too, because they have gone beyond bounds.And I think you get this in 2 Thessalonians 2.For this cause God will send them a strong delusion that they might believe the lie, because they refuse to accept the love of the truth.They had pleasure in unrighteousness and then God says okay, I’ll help you believe the lie you want to believe.I will help you damn yourselves.This is what you want.I think it is a solemn thought Tom.

Tom:

Yes, Dave also, it’s a deterrent for those who do have a heart for truth.When we see the wages of sin, the death, the destruction, all that it causes, it does affect other people.Those not committed to that; to say wait a minute, this can’t be the way that—you know, what we are seeing here can’t be the way it is.There must be something else.There must be a God.There must be someone to turn to, a hope.You know it has that affect as well.

Dave:

I suppose.We hope that men will be desperate enough to turn to the Lord and God wants that.That’s why he keeps pleading.That’s why we have preachers; that’s why we have his Word.That’s why he has extended the day of grace, but one day his judgment will be poured out upon this earth.