Beware of Idolatry! God hates and punishes!

Reading through the prophet Hosea it amazes me just how much God hates idolatry. A. W. Tozer says this about idolatry:

“let us beware lest we in our pride accept the erroneous notion that idolatry consists only in kneeling before visible objects of adoration, and that civilized peoples are therefore free from it. The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. It begins in the mind and may be present where no over act of worship has taken place…Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which the polluted waters of idolatry flow; they are themselves idolatrous. The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true. Perverted notions about God soon rot the religion in which they appear…” (The Knowledge of the Holy, 5-6).

In this post I’d like to address one of the perverted and idolatrous notions that seems to be just as prevalent today as it was in Tozer’s day. Many today have been worshipping a god that is “so loving” that he could never punish or hate anyone – not even the wickedest of wicked. This concept of God is gross and perverse idolatry. It is grossly unbiblical, which we’ll look at in a minute. It demeans God’s holiness. It makes rebellion against God a light and trivial thing to him; and it makes the true God of the Bible to look like an evil and murderous tyrant who butchers people who don’t deserve it.

First of all, I’d like to silence the idea that God doesn’t hate people. The true God of the Bible hates wicked people:

Hosea 9:15 says, “because of all their wickedness in Gilgal, I hated them there. Because of all their sinful deeds, I will drive them out of my house. I will no longer love them…” Also, take a look at Psalm 11:5-7 which says, “The LORD examines the righteous, but the wicked and those who love violence his soul hates. On the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur…For the LORD is righteous, he loves justice…” God hates wicked people and promises to pour out his fierce wrath upon them because he loves justice.

Next, take a look at the fierceness of God’s wrath-filled heart towards the wicked in these two passages:

Hosea 5:14 says, “For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off with no one to rescue them.”

Hosea 7:12, 16 say, “Even if they rear children, I will bereave them of every one…Even if they bear children, I will slay their cherished offspring.”

These descriptions are shocking! Like a lion rips an animal to shreds, so God promises to rip the people of the tribe of Ephraim to shreds. Even more shocking is God’s promise to slay the children born to the men and women in the tribe of Ephraim. How could a loving God ever do this to anyone? The answer is simple. God loves what is good; therefore, he must hate what is evil. If I love children, I am obligated to hate abortion. If I love men and women, I am obligated to hate murder. Here’s the problem: people are evil, and God, because he loves what is good, must hate them because they are evil.Romans 3:11-12 says, “there is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

Turning away from God is a sin that everyone is guilty of since he has commanded us to love him and seek him and treasure him above all else. So God already has just cause for punishing us. But God is also a jealous God. God, being the most glorious, valuable, precious, and worthy being in the universe has the right to be loved, adored, cherished, and worshipped above all. He created us to be his people and love and adore and cherish him much like a wife loves and adores and cherishes her husband. Just like a husband would be indignant and angry with his wife for committing adultery, God has every right to be angry and indignant when his people turn away from his glorious beauty, breaking covenant with him, and give themselves to another in gross perversion. This is what the book of Hosea is all about: how God’s people have committed adultery and idolatry against God, and how God is very upset because what they have done is intensely offensive to him.

So when we see the intensity of God’s fierce anger and the graphic descriptions of his wrath against people, we shouldn’t dare conclude that God is an evil tyrant! We should assume that God, as the just judge of all he has made, has chosen a punishment that fits the crime. Whenever God punishes anyone, they get exactly what they deserve. Check out these verses in Hosea:

Hosea 7:13 – “Woe to them, because they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, because they have rebelled against me!”

Hosea 9:9 – “God will remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins.”

Hosea 9:17 – “My God will reject them because they have not obeyed him…”

Rejection and destruction?! These are harsh, absolutely! But these punishments are just, absolutely! The harshness of these punishments should never make us question the kindness of God, rather they should make us wonder at the offensiveness of our own sin against a holy God!

Beware of idolatry! Worship, love, and live for God as he has said he is.