While hating God is not a popular subject and will most likely never be a book that is high on the list for bestsellers, it is a widespread practice. If it were a disease, it is epidemic. All people are born dead in sins and are at enmity with God. All people are born with hearts that do not desire the truth of God and do not want to retain the knowledge of God (Romans 1:18-32). All hearts are more deceitful than all else (Jeremiah 17:9). The result is a lot of action by religious people that want to retain something of their history or a sense of self-righteousness. It sure appears to be the case that many people celebrate and practice their self-love in religion by doing all with a focus on themselves and creating a God in their own image who is focused on them as well. The whole of their religion is nothing more than a shining out of their own self-love and self-focus. They have made a god in their own image and it is that god that they worship which is really the worship of self. They imagine that the god they have dreamed up is the true god and that their god is focused on them and loves them beyond all that they can imagine.
The human heart is irresistibly religious. It simply cannot get away from the nagging idea of God, but it will distort that idea as much as it can in order to live as it pleases. What is interesting to note is that the vast majority of verses in Scripture about hating God are directed to the Jews as a religious people or toward a church. For example, the passage in James 4:4 is to a group of churches (James 1:1). John wrote I John to people to help them distinguish between the saved and the non-saved. He warned them that a love for the world meant that the love of the Father was not in them (I John 2:14-15). Though John did not say it at that point, yet in 4:7-8 he is clear that the one that does not love God does not know God. A person that does not love God hates God. This sounds brutal, but Jesus taught the religious people around Him that they could only have one true master at a time. If they tried to have two they would love the one and hate the other (Mat 6:24). Do we see people in the churches loving pleasure? Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:4 that these are “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” Those who love pleasure are following after the master of self and hate God in reality.
If we face the Bible as God’s Word and without flinching, we will see that it teaches some very uncomfortable things. One is that there are only two kinds of people in the world. There are believers and unbelievers, but believers are those who love God and unbelievers are those that hate God. The population of planet earth is not primarily divided among political beliefs or any other beliefs as such. It is divided among those who love God and those who hate God. The real divide shows us what is really going on. In the United States there are real divisions among Republicans and Democrats, and then those of other parties as well. But those parties will come together at times over certain issues. But the real battle is between those that really love God and those that really hate Him. All other divides come as a result of self-love rather than the love of God.
Another truth that we have to face without flinching is that those that are members of differing religions and denominations are also made up by the same kinds of people. All religions in the world are made up of those that love God and those that hate Him. In fact, it certainly appears that the vast majority of religions are made up with a vast majority of people that hate God. The Bible teaches that there is only one kind of person that loves God and that is the one that has been born of God and knows Him (I John 4:7-8). If we continue to face this without flinching, we can then look at what happened in the book of Revelation and the churches addressed there in chapters 2-3. If we now turn our gaze back to the modern day we can see that true Christianity is certainly hard to find in both Europe and America. What has happened to those places where the great revivals used to be? What has happened to the places where the great confessions of the faith were written?
True religion cannot be transferred by human beings to other human beings because the love of God can only come from God Himself. True Christianity can only be obtained from God. Perhaps true Christianity was diluted when men tried to teach it rather than point to God Himself. Perhaps true Christianity was diluted when it became either a doctrine to learn or a moral life to live. Whatever the case, however, the buildings of the churches are now inhabited by people that hate God in truth while they claim to love Him with their lips. It is as if the modern professing Church has become a synagogue of Satan in which the hatred of God dwells. People want to have their ears tickled because they don’t want to hear the truth about themselves or of God. They don’t want to hear the truth about themselves because they hate God and love themselves. We must begin to understand the gravity of what is really going on and wake up. Hatred for God under the guise of love (worldly love) reigns in religion today. This should change how people view church and how churches view the people. It is very deadly to true Christianity.
God Loves... Himself 
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