Dorcas,

Thanks, that does help.I do have to take everything minute by minute if I can even find one!

I have to ask along with taco and freecd- if God hated us- why would He die for us? Why would He send His son to suffer and die for people He despises?

I think we have to be very careful about a balance here. There are many scriptures to support that God loves people.

[i]For the law was given through Moses; God's [b]unfailing love and faithfulness[/b] came through Jesus Christ. John 1:17[/i]

[i]"I am the LORD, I am the LORD, the merciful and gracious God. I am slow to anger and rich in [b]unfailing love and faithfulness[/b]. Ex 34:6[/i]

Why would it say here that God so loved the world- if He didn't?

[i]"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16[/i]

Just my 2 cents.

In Him, Chanin

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Chanin

I once heard a preacher say this.. What do you think about it?

"God will love you all the way to Hell.... then there is no hope."

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Josh Parsley

My thoughts on it is this:

I do not see hatred here being the opposite or the absense of love. The opposite of love is selfishness.

I would say God's love would be God's care, and God's hatred would be God's disgust. God cares for all, but he has a disgust of not only sin but also with sinners. He wills there good, but He cannot delight in them.

There is a certain type of love, a Fatherly love, which God has only for those who are His children, those who have been born again. And there is a holy disgust God has with sinners while they remain in their filthiness.

What do you guys think? Does that make any sense?

That is how I've been able to reconcile this issue. Scripturally there is no denying that God hates sinners, and scripturally there is no denying that God loves sinners.

Jesse, I agree.

Perhaps the larger issue here is the justice/wrath of God? How can you love without hate? it would be something so empty...there can be no love without hate..one cannot exist without the other. Does man not choose which side he will be on? If you choose to follow Jesus and the devil makes things difficult for you, would it be a loving thing to you if God would allow that person to enjoy the blessings of heaven without ever repenting? Would you call that love? justice? And if that unrepentent sinner would gain heaven, would he not take with him his rebellion and fight God there just as he has here on earth? God cast out Lucifer for that reason. God only wants people who will be submitted to Him for all of eternity. He loves his creation but when one aligns himelf up with the enemy is this not an affront to God? and why should he not hate that? He does not want to send anyone to hell, but to hell they must go if they so choose.

ginnyrose

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Sandra Miller

Rebecca,

We can know the love of God when he convicts us of our sin(s). This is the work of the Holy Spirit to urge us to fix the things that need repairing, to make us holy before God. When you no longer feel the HS convicting you, you have reason for alarm. The solution? ask the LORD to teach you to be able to recognize his voice when he speaks because you want to be obedient. Try it and see what happens...I suggest this will answer your questins to your satisfaction...even with five children. I also had five. :-D And may I suggest, you need this more then ever when you have five children to mother.

ginnyrose

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Sandra Miller

Hello,

I had been thinking of posting something along the same lines a while back. I understand the reason you are bringing this aspect of God's nature more into focus. I once had a sweet sister in the Lord tell me that God is love and he will still love people even if they choose to go to hell. Well, this lady in my judgement was a sincere genuine Christian, yet this type of understanding of God and his love being unconditional really mars the portrait of the Lord that the Bible paints for us. God being infinite and us humans being finite, God needed to come up with some way of conveying both his infinite Love and his infinite Contempt. He has chosen to do this through the Bible with stories written in the blood of peoples lives. How could God more convey the infinite depth of his Love than to send his own Son to die and suffer for us on a cross? I believe he hit upon an excellent medium to convey the eternal qualities of his Love in the sacrifice of his Son Jesus on the cross. However we musn't stop there. The Lord has also given us numerous accounts of his contempt which just as vividly gets the message across as to the true nature of his character.

Consider the story about Jehu and Jezebel:

2Ki 9:30-37 And when Jehu was come to Jezreel,

Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her face,

and tired her head, and looked out at a window.

And as Jehu entered in at the gate, she said,

Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?

And he lifted up his face to the window, and

said, Who is on my side? who? And there looked

out to him two or three eunuchs.

And he said, Throw her down. So they threw her

down: and some of her blood was sprinkled on the

wall, and on the horses: and he trode her under

foot. And when he was come in, he did eat and

drink, and said, Go, see now this cursed woman,

and bury her: for she is a king's daughter.

And they went to bury her: but they found no

more of her than the skull, and the feet, and

the palms of her hands.

Wherefore they came again, and told him. And he

said, This is the word of the LORD, which he

spake by his servant Elijah the Tishbite,

saying, In the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat

the flesh of Jezebel:

And the carcase of Jezebel shall be as dung upon

the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel;

so that they shall not say, This is Jezebel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can you picture this? Jehu confronts Jezebel, they throw her down from the window and her blood spatters on the wall and the horses walk over her. Meanwhile Jehu goes and sits down and eats and the messengers come and tell him that the dogs have eaten her leaving nothing but her skull, hands, and feet. The prophet had said that Jezebel shall be as dung upon the earth and it was so. It is hard to find a much clearer picture of the Lord's Contempt than this one in the Bible. I believe ultimately, after all of his means of grace have been exausted that this is a picture of the heart of God toward the wicked in their eternal state of torment. One thing that is for certain and cannot be denied is that the Lord himself did hold Jezebel in utter contempt because she was an opposer of all righteousness. If a person is going to believe that the Bible is God's holy book and that the stories are put there by God for a reason, then one must believe not only in the Love of the Lord but in the Contempt of the Lord as well. Both Love and Contempt will forever abide in the heart of the Lord, His Love for all eternity for his redeemed and his Contempt for the wicked who will suffer his fiery wrath of hellfire and destruction for all eternity. If his contempt for the wicked should ever cease then I suppose he could call the whole hell thing off, but he won't, he has bound himself over to his word and it will be just like he said it will be.


Dan 12:2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

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Noel Pautsky

Isn't that why Jesus cried tears like great drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemany because God would forsake Him? Jesus said "Father why have you forsaken me?" Jesus dreaded the moment of broken fellowship with His Father.He cried great drops of blood in the Garden of Gathsemany.
I see it like this; God didn't hate Jesus because God knew that Jesus had no sin but He carried our sin.The bible said that God still had to hide His face from him.God turned His back on Jesus at that moment.God is holy and He can't look on sin.If were not covered by the blood its like sin and the sinner become one.God hated Esau when Esau was just an infant.God knew Esau's end and what would become of Esau.It's not His choosing though it's ours.

Now we get into predestination...ooops!!! :)