It offends and puzzles many people when someone makes the claim that each and every unbeliever hates God. If we think of hate as this burning dislike and desire to do harm, many people do not think that they have that toward God. This hatred can come in different ways and be hidden from us and others as well. Hatred for God can be hidden in ways of religion and of Christianity as well. It is hidden in humanism and it is hidden in forms of what some would term as God-centeredness. It is hidden, though not very well, in Pelagian forms of theology. It can also be hidden in Arminian and Reformed versions of theology. Is there a branch of theology that it cannot be hidden in? There is not. The human heart is born dead in sin and is at enmity with God. The human heart has God in its knowledge but it does not want Him there. So the depraved heart that is steeped in self-love and deceitfulness casts God out of its knowledge even in holding to versions of theology. The human heart can hate God and still hold the truth of God in its creed and yet use that truth to deceive itself about the hatred of its heart for God. When Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that “the heart is more deceitful than all else,” we should listen and cry out to God about our own.
When we hate another we hate something about that person that is very disagreeable to us. Cain is the example for this: “For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; 12 not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous” (I John 3:11-12). Cain hated Abel because Abel’s actions and sacrifices were righteous and Cain’s were not (see also Genesis 4). Regardless of what God thought about Abel’s actions, they were disagreeable to Cain and so he hated and killed Abel. Abel pleased God and Cain did not. Behind that is that Abel did what was commanded of God and so his sacrifices were pleasing to God. Cain did not do what was commanded and so his offerings were not acceptable. He could not change or harm God so he killed Abel. His real hatred, however, was at God. Abel’s offerings pointed to the truth about God and how God alone could set out how to please Him and how He was to be approached. Cain wanted to do what was right in his own eyes and do things the way he wanted. Genesis 9:6 tells us the real problem with murder: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.” The real crime with murder is that it is an attack on God. Cain hated God and so struck at the image of God who was his brother Abel. Cain hated God.
What this passage teaches us is that hatred for God can come out in several ways. Cain was born in the image of his father Adam who was a fallen man at this point. Notice that contrast between Genesis 5:1 and 5:3: “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created. 3 When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth.” In verse one God created man in the likeness of God. After the fall, Adam became a father of a son in his own likeness and according to his own image. Cain was born dead in sin with enmity toward God. Part of the curse that was placed on Satan in Genesis 3:15 is that there would be enmity between the seeds. Cain hated Abel because there was enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent. Cain did acts of worship and offered sacrifices to God, but his hatred was hidden even by his “worship.”
Throughout the history of Israel the external worship was kept up and yet the people committed acts of enmity against God by following other gods and worshipping idols. They kept a pretense up toward God but in truth they hated Him. The same thing is true today. There is much pretense of worship going on in buildings that have the name “Christian” on them, but the external acts of worship are only hiding the true hatred of God that is in the hearts of people. Professing atheists and open sinners only maintain their acts of sin by not retaining the knowledge of God (Romans 1:21, 28). When they push this knowledge of God that they have out, they are then filled with all sorts of sin (v. 29). But the same thing is true of those who claim to be Christians. By their religion they are trying for a good conscience so they can sleep and not be utterly miserable, but their very religion can only be arrived at by casting out the knowledge of God and then being filled with wickedness. When someone comes along and points to the truth of who God is, the hidden hatred in the heart will come out. The true God is very disagreeable to people as He is opposite to who they are and what they desire. A person that points out the truth of who God is to people will be the instrument of arousing the hatred of people and the hatred of God that they have will come out toward the messenger. Yet until people see their hatred for God, they will not see the wickedness and vileness of their own hearts. Instead they will continue on in their hatred of God while covering it over with religion. A true preacher of God will never please anyone other than those who truly love God.
God Loves... Himself 
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