God Hates Sin

March 8

“Yet I sent you all My servants the prophets, again and again, saying, Oh, do not do this abominable thing which I hate,” Jeremiah 44:4

There is an old saying that we should love the sinner but hate the sin. Sin in all its guises is repugnant to God so we who believe in Him should follow His example and disdain sin in all its forms.

Some sins are quite easy to recognize. We can’t watch the nightly news on television without seeing sin being reported, but lest we preoccupy ourselves with the thought that sin is what is heinous to us, let us remember that ALL sin is a stench in the nostrils of God.

The ‘little white lie’ we tell to elevate ourselves in the esteem of our friends, the small amount of money we neglected to leave as a tip for service rendered in a restaurant, the hurling of expletives at someone who’s offended us while driving in traffic—all these little sins are abominable to God—because God is holy.

Further, when we reduce our condemnation of sin, those around us who do not know the Lord as we know Him, begin to conceive of sin in a distorted way. They fail to grasp its magnitude; they become confident that their own small departures from righteousness are of no consequence.

Tragically, watering down the truth of God's word for ANY reason, withholds the love of God from those who are in desperate need of the washing, the cleansing that only Jesus can give. There is no other covering for sin but the blood of Jesus, and that covering must be for all our sin, not just the heinous sin that reviles human sensibilities.

God HATES sin! He HATES ALL SIN!

Here is a brief list of things that includes some sins that may seem small in the eyes of men alongside the big things with which they’re listed, but they, too loom large from God’s vantage point:

"There are six things which the Lord hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, A false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers," Proverbs 6:16-19.

God makes His position quite clear, so we who follow after Him should assume His attitude toward sin in all its forms. Why should we unapologetically declare the Lord’s total condemnation of sin?

It is because God loves people. God so completely loves His children that He hates anything that hurts them. Sin in all its manifestations, whether small sins or heinous sins in the eyes of man, not only hurts people but it destroys them. To withhold God's truth regarding sin is to withhold the awareness of the need for forgiveness and cleansing under the blood of Jesus, and thereby it is to withhold God's love from sinners who are “dead in trespasses and sins,” (see Ephesians 2:1, 5, 6).

Therefore, we who know the truth must proclaim the truth, and trust that it will set free those who are captive to sin, according to Luke 4:18.