But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. (Psalm 73:2-3)

When God is turned to be a man’s enemy and fights against him, he is in a desperate plight. With other enemies we may contend with some hope of success, but not with the Omnipotent.

The enmity of others is an affliction, but the enmity of God is destruction. If He turns to be our enemy, then everything is turned against us.  If God be for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31) But if God be against us, who can be for us?

Men may try to persuade themselves that God does not care, that it is nothing to Him how men act, whether they break or keep His laws. Men may plead that He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil (Luke 6:35), and the same event happens unto all, both to the righteous and to the wicked; and so indeed it seems for the present.

Our shortsightedness may even assure us that the ungodly prosper and have the best of it, but this is only our blindness. God hates sin now and always. He would not be God if He did not. God is stirred with righteous indignation against every kind of evil; it moves His Spirit to anger.

Some believe in an impassive God, but certainly the God of the Bible is never so described. He is represented in Holy Scripture after the manner of men. If He were represented after the manner of God, you and I could understand nothing at all of the description.

But as he is represented to us in Scripture, the Lord notes sin, feels sin, grows angry with sin, is provoked, and His Holy Spirit is vexed by the rebellion of men. ((Charles Spurgeon, At the Master’s Feet [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005], December 14.))

Charles Spurgeon

Further reading

• THE POWER OF THE CROSS
• THE POWER OF THE CROSS (PART TWO
• THE SHADOW OF HIS CROSS