7 Things God Hates: A Hard Truth About Grace and Justice

We're again at Proverbs 6, verse 16 through 19 today.

Proverbs 6:16–19

It's such a short passage, but very powerful. I want to read it one more time

to us before we go into the message this morning.

It says, there are six things which Yahweh hates, even seven which are an abomination to him.

Haughty eyes, or some of your translations may say a proud look, a lying tongue,

hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked thoughts,

feet that hasten to run to evil a false witness who breathes out lies and one

who spreads strife among brothers and as we read god's word today.

Let it ring today. These seven things in scripture that God hates.

And I'm going to talk about that more in a minute because hate is a powerful word, right?

We'll talk a little bit about that more in a minute. But I was reminded,

y'all, the story of a little boy who was actually in a relative's wedding and

he was coming down the aisle.

And what he would do is he would take two steps. he

would stop and he would turn to the crowd alternating between

the groom's side and the bride's side

and what he would do is when he would do that

he would face the crowd and he would put his hands up

like claws and he would roar really loud and so it kind of went like this you

know like right and then a couple more he did that all the way down the aisle

people were you can imagine the crowd was like near tears laughing, right?

Like what is good? I mean, and so by the time he had raised the front,

you know, everybody is just helplessly crying almost laughing at this.

And the little boy though, you might think, well, he was getting more and more

distressed because all these people are laughing.

And he was near tears by the time he got down to the pulpit.

And when he asked, you know, what were you doing? And he just sniffed and he

said, I was being the ring bear.

Brother Judd, don't quit your day job.

The ring bear, right? But have y'all ever heard the phrase, God is love?

You've read the scripture too, right? When we hear that, we often think of a softer,

kinder, gentler guy, one that always accepts, always forgives,

never scolds, never upset,

And surely the God that we have come to know as God is love never exhibits something like hate.

And if you think of God in that softer, gentler manner, then this sermon this

morning will certainly give you something to ponder and consider.

The God of the Bible, Eastwood, is one that seeks sinners, and he wants them

to repent and turn from their evil ways.

Every time a person comes to God with a sincere heart and a willingness to repent,

then God forgives and restores them. Amen?

Just as you and I, think about it, exhibit different emotions in life,

so does God. We're made in God's image, by the way.

God desires the very best for you and me. We know that from scripture.

He wants to draw us close to him.

God wants us to search his word and wait on the Lord in prayer.

But when we think more highly of ourselves and seek to harm others,

then God's love and his goodness, y'all, seem to fade away as we look in the

scriptures and a jealous anger is aroused.

Don't miss this today because love and goodness cannot stand alone apart from justice.

And as we see in this opening slide this morning, it is God's hate for evil,

for the evil things of life that magnify the goodness and love of God.

Do you believe that there can actually be characteristics in your heart and

life and my heart and life that make us almost repulsive to God that he literally hates?

Anybody ever ridden down the highway behind a hog truck or another truck that

really stinks? You get that awful smell. You know what I'm talking about?

And think about how you react to that.

Then you have an idea of how repulsive these seven sins are to God.

And by the way, this isn't an exhaustive list, but it is a progressive list.

And as we see, it gets from, it's just a progression all the way.

And we'll talk about that, how it starts in one area and then goes down, down, down.

And it's repulsive to God. This passage of scripture has the makings,

really, of a seven-part sermon series, Brother Aaron.

But, I mean, we could literally take one of these a week. But instead,

I want us to just get a greater understanding of them as a whole.

And I want us to look, if you will, in the mirror and see if there are traces,

no matter how small, of these sins operating in our life.

And I'm not going to stand up here this morning and point my finger at you and

say that sin surely describes you, that particular sin.

Because as I've been preparing this sermon, I've been convicted that there are

shades of at least one or two of these sins in my heart occasionally, right?

And if God convicts you of one or two of these today, y'all,

the challenge is don't hesitate to respond to him.

When you do, we have the assurance that God forgives.

God forgives. And the first sin that's listed, as we see in this next slide

in Proverbs, is the one concerning, here we go, number one, a proud look or haughty eyes.

I know that you probably all understand exactly what that means.

It's the look that says, I'm so much better than you.

I have it all together and you don't. I look so much better than you.

I have more money than you i am someone i'm going somewhere while you on the

other hand are no one going nowhere.

Now i gotta ask y'all have you ever met a person

like that anybody you're probably

sitting there thinking of that special

someone right now right probably so

they walk through their life with their nose

high in the air so they don't have to see or

deal with the less fortunate and what these people don't

realize y'all is that their haughtiness and

pride is actually nauseating to

other people and most people can see right through that superficiality and they

actually despise those proud looking people there are some in life that that

think that that's the way you should be you probably met them and emulate that

same kind of arrogance those social climbers sometimes they're called.

They alienate others and usually flock together.

They're all caught up in being seen and being the best people in town.

And status among peers, y'all, drives them to do insane things.

Y'all probably seen some of this on the internet and other places.

But to God, don't miss this today, Eastwood.

This is the heart of self-willed living.

A person, y'all, that is so consumed with who they are is not concerned a bit with what God thinks.

Do you see that? It's so sad that they're blinded to God through their own selfishness

and self-centeredness.

And that proud look, just like getting behind the hog truck,

that proud look smells bad to God. And according to the Bible, he hates it.

Be careful. This is for all of us. Be careful in how you direct your heart.

When we're self-consumed, then we will be judged lacking by God.

And then the second thing that God hates, as we see in the text, is what?

Y'all probably already know it. What does it say? A lying tongue.

Let's throw that next point up. A lying tongue, right? I remember,

anybody ever remember when you were in elementary school?

Some of y'all may raise your hands. I'm in it right now. But elementary school,

there were some kids in class that could never tell the truth.

They'd rather lie than tell the truth, right? And I know my personal experience,

you know, I went through all that situation and think, you know,

seeing that lying might make the problem seem easier.

But every time I did that and fell into that trap, guess what happened?

The truth always came out eventually, right? Those people that I lied to remembered that.

And my trustworthiness in their eyes was what? Decreased. And if you begin down

a path of lying and deceit, then people will never trust you,

even when you're telling the truth.

You remember Aesop's Fables? Or Aesop's Fables? I guess that would be the right pronunciation.

It included the one, you remember this one about the boy who cried wolf,

even when there wasn't one?

And one day, what happened?

A wolf really did come. Did anybody believe him?

In the end, what happened? Do you remember? The boy was eaten by the wolf because

he reaped what he had sown.

When we have a spirit of lying in our life, we eventually don't know what the truth is anymore.

Our lives, if you want to look at it this way, become kind of disoriented.

Think about this, like a compass that is sitting on top of a magnet.

That disorients the compass.

We never know exactly which way truth exists anymore.

We weave so many lies that we forget what we said, and we have to create another

lie and another lie to cover it up, right?

Our friends, family, neighbors, classmates sometimes, even God can see right through it.

And if we're to have a heart that's pleasing to God, we got to remember to make

truthfulness, church, a primary priority of our life.

We don't want to be guilty of having a lying tongue.

A third thing that God hates is when someone sheds innocent blood or hands that shed innocent blood.

You know, so many people, I think, including Christians, are divided on the

issue of the death penalty.

And those that are for capital punishment feel that it's just a solution to

an individual that is set upon destroying others.

When a person does such an awful crime, then they deserve to die.

And those that are executed obviously will never harm any other person, right?

But there are those that are against capital punishment.

Those individuals usually quote, thou shalt not kill as a justification for

never taking the life of an individual.

But if you actually read through Leviticus, you see that God does prescribe

a punishment of death for various capital and moral crimes.

God didn't judge in the Bible, the executioner. He judged the one that had committed the crime.

And whether you are for or against capital punishment, I think we all would

agree that the innocent should be protected. Amen.

During the days of Solomon, let me remind you, there was a group of people that

actually worshiped Baal.

And those that worshiped this God would actually sacrifice their infant children into the fire.

To actually appease the gods. And you know what? This activity enraged the Lord.

Not only were they worshiping a false god, they were actually doing what?

Shedding innocent blood.

Y'all, our God is zealous. Don't miss this.

About protecting, listen up, widows, orphans, and the defenseless.

There were protections placed into the law for their care. and those that defrauded

or injured the defenseless in scripture, you know what they received?

The wrath of God's judgment.

Today, let's stop and think about it. We may not throw our children into the

fire, but we do turn our backs sometimes on the defenseless and the innocent.

And in essence, we allow them to wither under oppression sometimes.

And think of abortion for a moment and how defenseless and innocent those babies are.

If it's in our power to help those that are innocent, we need to be willing to do that.

And when we don't do it, church, it's as if we have shed innocent blood. God hates it.

And then a fourth thing that God hates is a heart that is set on doing evil,

a heart that devises wicked plans.

You know, in the world today, people are doing wrong and they seem to have no remorse, do they?

I really believe one of the greatest scourges in our nation today is drugs.

So many families, y'all, have been destroyed through the use of crack cocaine.

So many families are being destroyed through meth, methamphetamine,

The flood of fentanyl across our southern border is taking more and more young

people and young adults' lives.

Probably you remember a time in society, some of you here today,

when it was only beer and alcohol, right? Beer, alcohol, all that, maybe smoke, whatever.

Alcohol continues to destroy families, even today.

But the potency of drugs being peddled in our streets and schools,

by the way, are destroying the reasoning ability of people.

Hopelessly addicted to these mind-altering drugs. And many times it's not who you think.

Many times today you have drug addicts who are young adults who actually are holding down jobs.

Once a person, y'all, begins down a path of self-destruction,

it seems their heart is fully turned away from God.

The only thing that this person can do, Eastwood, is devise ways,

as it says here in the text, to continue to do evil.

They'll steal from their children. They'll steal from their neighbor.

They'll sell their own soul for another temporary thrill.

Romans chapter 1 actually describes those as having a depraved mind or a reprobate mind.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

The sad part, y'all, is that God removes his hand of protection from them and

allows them the full reign of their sin.

And y'all, I say today, woe to our nation if God removes his hand of protection.

Well, the fifth character flaw we see identified in this text is another part

of the body that's engaged in evil.

We talked about the eye. Remember the proud look or the haughty eyes?

We've talked about the tongue. one that lies. We've talked about the hands that

shed innocent blood, and we've mentioned a heart which is wicked.

And as we see in this next slide, as we continue this list, now guess what?

We're including the feet.

That's actually putting action to our thoughts and plans, feet that make haste to run to evil.

You know, it's from the heart, church, that our intents and actions are manifested.

Did you know that? Don't forget this today.

Rarely do you go where your heart hasn't already gone.

Rarely do you go where your heart has not already gone.

As we think in our heart, so we are.

God hates those who execute evil plans.

All of us have considered doing something evil at one point in our life,

right? The question is, what are we doing with that?

We need to bring those evil thoughts under whose control?

God's control, right? Allow his will to be done in our situation instead of

taking the matter or the law into our own hands.

When we bring every thought church captive to Christ, to his submission,

then we're to live a life that's pleasing to God. But if there's something brewing

in your spirit, please turn it over to God.

One day, I promise you this, the opportunity or the desire to seek revenge or

resolution to your situation will appear.

You know what's going to happen? You're not going to be able to resist it.

It's like a runner at the beginning of a race, y'all, waiting for that opportunity

to bolt out into the track.

Sin is brewing in your heart, and it will unleash itself one day. Thank you.

God hates, let me say this, according to scripture, feet that are swift and running towards evil.

And then a sixth thing that God hates, according to this passage,

that goes directly back to the Ten Commandments, the ninth commandment,

by the way, that was placed there actually to protect the innocent and punish

those who were seeking to destroy others when they actually bore false witness against others,

a false witness who breathes out lies.

You know, Israel's whole court system depended upon the word of at least two

witnesses, right? Two, three, but at least two.

If a few individuals actually decided, y'all, to lie about somebody,

then that person could be punished unfairly or even executed for their alleged crimes.

One witness was not enough in their culture to give a conviction.

Today, what do we do in our culture? We actually just slap the hand of somebody

that lies in court, don't we?

In some ways, we make a mockery of the judicial system. We tolerate intentional

distortion of the facts, right?

We celebrate the minor loopholes that lawyers use to help wiggle their clients out of crimes.

The bedrocks of any society, y'all, is based upon the execution of proper justice. Amen?

When justice fails, society fails. That's why lying, bearing false witness, is such an evil deed.

It undermines the society, church, and eventually the entire nation.

Our sins do affect other people.

Our actions impact our neighbors, our family, our friends.

We may believe the lie that I'm only hurting myself. You ever heard that?

But in the end, our sin affects others.

The last thing that God hates, and this is that he hates, and it's in progression,

is when someone seeks to bring discord among those that believe in Jesus,

believe in God, one who sows discord among brothers.

We recognize, y'all, that discord can be rampant among unbelievers, right?

They don't care about God. They may not care about other people.

They may only be concerned about themselves.

Those that are self-centered will do whatever it takes to make them look good and others look bad.

But God, I want y'all to get this today. This is for all of us.

God here in his word, he has a higher standard for the community of faith.

Come on, church. God has a higher standard for the community of faith.

Those that love God should be seeking the best in other people.

They do not need to be denigrating or berating others in a community of love and forgiveness.

When we begin to attack others in the church, we need to be careful. You know why?

Because those that live in glass houses do not need to throw rocks.

That's why. The world outside is looking into our houses of faith and they want

what we have, but sometimes they're afraid to enter.

When the house of faith, y'all, becomes the house of fighting,

the world sits back and you know what they do?

They laugh at us and God. That's what they do. And it defames the name of Jesus.

I've read stories of people, y'all, believe it or not, that have been taken

out of church in handcuffs because they hated and it swelled so much in their

heart to such a level that physical altercation arose and they had to be arrested.

God never intended his house to be anything other than a house of prayer. Amen.

He didn't intend for it to become a house of merchandise or a house of socialization

even, or a point of self-righteous pride.

He wanted it to be a place where sin could be forgiven he wanted the house of

faith to be a place y'all of restoration from alienation and separation from

god almighty and as we see in this next slide.

We, of all people, need to be careful of prideful eyes, monitor our tongue for truth,

purify our hands with good works, sanctify our hearts through meditating on

God's words, shot our feet with the gospel of peace, speak a word that's true, love one another,

especially those who are of the household of faith.

And I have to share with y'all, those are not my words.

Those are the words of who? The Lord, God Almighty. the Lord God Almighty.

And after a sermon like this, we should ask ourselves, all of us,

which one of these are plaguing me today?

If you study this list, like I said earlier, they're really progressive.

And as we see in this next slide, when we begin to exalt ourself,

church, then we take God off the throne of our life. Did you know that?

When we begin to exalt ourselves, we take God off the throne of our life.

Y'all, so many times we are convicted, all of us.

Maybe God has convicted you this day about one of these seven things that he hates.

We do have a loving God, y'all, that wants us to be restored again.

We have to resolve this question, though, and you see it on this slide.

Who is the Lord of your life? Who's the Lord of your life?

Is it God Almighty and his word? Do you seek to obey his word? Or is it you? or me?

Have we supplanted him on the throne of our life, our hearts?

You see, many times I was sharing my Sunday school class this morning,

God has made plain in his word what we should do in our life,

whether it's to, you know, not commit adultery, that's pretty plain,

or not to take God's name in vain, to go out and fulfill the great commission.

He's made so much plain in his word that we don't even have to pray about it

in the sense of whether to do it or not.

We just obey his word. We obey his word. You remember last week we were talking

about understanding biblical membership in church?

And one of the things that we looked at, our key verse was Hebrews 13, 17, right?

And talking about church and when we come and we become a part of a local church and it said,

obey your leaders and submit to them for they watch over your souls as those

who will give account so that they will do this with joy and not groaning for

this would be unprofitable for you.

God's made things so plain in his word. Who is the Lord of your life?

That's the question we all need to ask today. We cannot pull ourself up to God.

Only God's love can pull us out of the miry clay of sin.

And no sin, by the way, is too great for God.

He will forgive if you come to him. If you come to him.

The righteousness of the righteous, y'all, will not save you.

Only by yielding your life back to God, can we all walk in newness of life.

If you allow your pride, if I allow my pride to stand in the way and not repent,

if God's Holy Spirit is convicting you of any of these today,

then I have to ask you a question.

How can God forgive if you refuse to repent? He will not.

Y'all, it's so serious, y'all. When we see in Scripture, these things that God hates. He hates.

Y'all, we have to come before him and say, God, shine the spotlight of your

spirit on my heart, Lord.

Show me if there's any of these that I even have a hint of, Lord,

that I need to repent of and get right with you. Let's pray together.

Let's stand together. Father God, I give you praise today.

I ask, Lord, that you be glorified today. We thank you once again for your word.

And God, I pray that, Lord, any here today that, Lord, your convicting Holy

Spirit has touched our hearts just based on your word.

I pray today will be the day that we all respond to you in obedience and faith. In Jesus' name.