Atheism is simply an effort that people put forth to deny certain truths about God and about themselves. Atheists are quite virulent in their efforts to show themselves as moral people. Aside from the problem they have of showing any basis for morality or any real need for morality, they take for granted that they are more moral than religious people. Psalm 14:1 tells us that “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; there is no one who does good.” A person who says in his heart that there is no God is a fool. It says that they are corrupt and have committed abominable deeds. The religious people of the world will look on the “fool” who says there is no God and feel quite superior. They can see that these atheists hate God and try to shut Him out of their minds and hearts. But the religious folks are not like that. They are the ones that love God and sing songs of praise to Him and do good things for others. Atheists are the ones that try to take prayer out of schools and are responsible for the killing of many people. But in our pride we need to be very careful because we who judge are doing the same things in different ways. We scream that atheism is wrong and it is that hatred of God that leads to wicked practices. But in our judgments we are judging ourselves.
While the atheist tries to deny that there is such a being in the world as God, many religious folks are busy trying to deny the truth of God. These are nothing more than practical atheists. Is it worse to deny that God exists or to deny that the God who exists is perfectly holy? Is it any worse to deny that God exists than it is to deny that God is absolutely sovereign and can do as He pleases? Is it any worse to deny that God exists than to worship some foolish and small being as God? Is it any worse to deny that God exists than it is to practice evangelism for a false idea of God? Is it any worse to deny that God exists than it is to preach of a small god that human beings can control by their prayers and good works? Is it worse to say God does not exists or to preach of a God that is not focused on Himself but human beings? In some sense, all those who are not true Christians are atheists to some degree. All those who do not worship God in truth through Jesus Christ in fact hate Him. This means that all the false forms of Christianity and the false forms of worship are acts of hatred against God. These are hard words, but at some point we must come face to face with this.
Matthew 6:24 tells us this too: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” If any person does not love God supremely, then that person hates God. If any person is serving self in the things of religion, then that person hates God. When we are devoted to the one (self), by nature of the case we will despise the other (God). When we preach many things about God for the sake of self, we are in the process of hating God. Jesus told us that He preferred that we would be hot or cold rather than lukewarm (Rev. 3:16). Those who are lukewarm are trying to serve self with the name of God attached to it and that confuses things for the church and the world. The attempt to serve God partially is really an attempt to serve self fully. Regardless of how religious people attempt to be and regardless of their committed activities, if they are doing them out of love for self they are hating God and those religious acts are acts of atheism because they deny the true God.
The claim that I am making, then, is that there is a lot of atheism in the world because there are a lot of people denying the truth of God in the world. The reason that people deny the truth of God is because they hate Him. It is not just because the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons are deceived in their intellects about Jesus Christ that they do what they do, but because they hate the true God as He shines forth in Jesus Christ. There are many liberals in our day that deny Jesus Christ, but they do so out of hatred and not just the intellect. There are many conservatives in our day who deny the sovereignty of God who do so out of hatred for the true God rather than just an intellectual issue. The intellect will work to deny what it hates. We must get beyond trying only to convince people intellectually. The problem of unbelievers is not just that they don’t have the proper information, but that they hate God. They need a change of heart and not just a change in intellectual information. Indeed they need the information, but we must understand that their hearts need to be changed by the hand of God so that they will love the truth of God. Atheism is a massive problem within the Church today and it is simply being ignored or not seen. False doctrines and false beliefs about God are being covered over and hidden by a form of love which is nothing more than politeness and self-love. Until the Church has enough of God Himself to love Him and His truth, it will not set out in true love to uncover the massive amounts of atheism and hatred that is hidden in Her midst. True love does not wait in this sense, but it must become active in exposing atheism and hatred of God in the works of self and others in the local churches. Oh how we must pray.
God Loves... Himself 
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