Proverbs 6.
"There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to Him."
And you know what two of them are.
It's not just the acts of wickedness.
It's "a false witness."
God says, I hate, I abominate
"a false witness who breathes out lies
and one who sows discord among brothers."
Somebody who's divisive, God hates them.
Not just what they do.
Scripture says, "them."
You can't go but six chapters into your Bible,
and what happens?
God kills every man, woman, and child
on the face of the earth
except eight souls.
God hates not just the sin.
You know, years ago,
we had a tract that showed the ark.
Lightning, dark clouds, the rain is falling.
And there are men and women desperate
as the waters are rising
trying to get into the ark.
And on the side of it is a smiley face
that says, "Smile. God loves you."
That tract was not made to be funny.
It was made to show how foolish
so much of modern-day evangelism is.
When you go out into this world
and you tell people to smile
because God loves them...
Look, what Scripture tells us
is that all of mankind are children of wrath.
We are objects of the hatred of God
by nature.
We don't deserve His love.
God could say this:
Noah have I loved,
and the rest of the world I hated.
You see, we get stirred up -
Paul expects people to get stirred up
just when it's "Jacob have I loved
and Esau have I hated."
Just one and one.
God's love. God's hatred.
But what about when God takes the whole world
and His hatred is expressed
and He wipes them all out?
And He saves but eight souls?
This is the kind of God we have.
And let me tell you something,
when He wiped out Sodom and Gomorrah,
He has Peter tell us
He brought them to extinction.
He turned them to ashes
as an example of what is going to happen
to the ungodly now.
He spared Lot.
This is all through Scripture.
Lot have I loved,
Sodom and Gomorrah have I hated.
This is all over.
When the Lord hates somebody,
in Paul's estimation, it's not injustice.
Is there is injustice with God? Why?
Because Esau was hated.
He said, "by no means."
God said, "I will have mercy
upon whom I will have mercy,
and I will have compassion..."
Remember this,
mercy.
If you get justice
and you get what your sins deserve,
it is the full, all-out, deep wrath
and hatred and indignation and fury,
fierce anger of God,
and that is what mankind deserves
and we don't think so,
and we have to be reminded
over and over of this,
and this is the reason why I wanted to go back to it.
Brethren, what stock do we come from?
We were children of wrath
like the rest of mankind.
Paul says it is no injustice on God's part
for Him to hate Esau.
Why? Because it's not unjust.
It's just.
That means it's right.
It is right for God to hate sinners.
And you can be sure of this,
if God hates somebody,
it's precisely because they're hate-worthy.
If God abominates somebody,
it's because they're abominable.
If God is offended by somebody
it's because they're offensive.
That is the reality, brethren.
God is not unjust to hate mankind.
Because mankind is a hateful thing
by nature.
It ought to be hated.
Evil people ought to be hated
by a good and a holy God.
That is only right.
God hated mankind.
He wiped out mankind in the flood.
Why? Because those people
were such character that it demanded
that they be wiped out.
Justice demanded it.
God only damns those who are damnable.
But that's all of mankind. There are no exceptions.
You can read there in Romans 3.
There's none righteous.
And in case we thought, well, there might be an exception:
No, not one.
Boy, we have to be reminded,
reminded over and over.
You know, we just have this sense
that the world - we don't feel it.
We don't feel it.
We don't hear the thunder all the time
and see the dark clouds.
But like Pilgrim in Pilgrim's Progress,
he recognized there is a storm.
There is destruction.
It's coming. It's on the horizons out there.
But we have to be brought back.
We have to be reminded.
Brethren, by nature,
we were children of wrath.
Children of God's hatred.