A Stepford God

Ryan,
That is so interesting that you brought that point up because I was just thinking about it the other day and God taught me something cool. I'm not trying to step in so that Josh won't answer your question -- I'd love to hear his answer and learn from it, as well -- I'd just like to add what I've learned for now.
Recently, I was reading an interview by someone involved with politics and the person said something like, "I'm not against abortion as much as I am for life." I know they were trying to present a positive message of love rather than hate, but it struck me wrong. And then I began to realize that to the measure that we love God, we hate evil. And, likewise, to the measure we love justice, we must hate injustice.
I believe that that is why God's wrath and judgment of wrong and sin is so harsh -- I believe it is because He Loves righteousness and good so much. And I believe it is because He Loves us so much.
In Genesis, Adam and Eve were told that if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil then they would surely die -- meaning that they would be separated from God. Because God is uncompromisingly Righteous we cannot fellowship with Him if we are unrighteous (1 John). Our unrighteousness separates us from Him -- and that is death to us as He created us to be. Throughout history, such as in the examples you mentioned or with the flood, I believe that God judged and punished in order to keep those who would be righteous from also perishing and dying due to evil and sin.
In the Old Testament, man was required to bring sacrifices to God according to the law as atonement for his sin. The sacrifice took the judgement upon itself for man's wickedness so that man could be forgiven and his fellowship with God not be fully broken. Because God is Righteous and Loves Righteousness, He hates evil -- in fact, He must hate evil in order to Love Righteousness. Kind of like, if you had a child, you would hate what would destroy or kill that child in full measure to your love for that child -- otherwise you wouldn't be loving your child.
We have proof that God Loves us because He made a way, through sacrifices, for us to be spared His wrath, so, in spite of our sin, we could still be considered His Righteous people and could benefit as such. But even with these sacrifices, we were not restored to the original plan God had for us -- we did not have resident victory over sin and evil, but were subject to it.
When God created the earth, He set man to rule over it and everything in it, God Ruling over him. When man disobeyed God, he sought to make himself "like God." In effect, he chose not to have God Rule over his life, and thus the earth, but to himself rule. When man rules apart from God, he abides by his own will and not God's Will. He is like Jacob, wrestling with God (Genesis 32). We were meant to wrestle against evil (Ephesians 6:12), but we are instead wrestling against God. If we are wrestling against God, then whose side are we on? It is a battle between good and evil and we, by fallen nature through Adam's sin, are on the wrong side.
If we give the analogy of the color black being symbolic of evil, and white of good, then I can tell you that there are no gray areas that can be called righteous or good because all gray is tainted by black.
But God, uncompromisingly Righteous as He is, still did not give up on us. Throughout the ages He made ways for us to become justified and to be forgiven.
And in His great Love, He gave His only Son to justify us once and for all through Sacrifice, if we will accept His Gift, that He might restore us to live and rule righteously, and to be Righteously Ruled by Him, as He planned from the beginning.
So, to conclude, I believe that we can see that He Loves what is good to a great measure -- actually, immeasurably -- because we have seen the greatness of His hatred of evil. Also, we can know that He Loves us because He gave His Best -- He held nothing back -- in effort to redeem us and restore us.

I know this is already kind of long, but I just want to add that 9 years ago I did not believe that God existed or that He Loved me, at all. I had grown up in a Christian home and had gone to church all my life, but my family was kicked out of a church and a restraining order was put against us although we had done nothing wrong. We had found out that the church leaders of this church that we attended -- the lead pastor of the church, in fact -- would not allow handicapped people to attend the church and in church, if they attempted to attend, the pastor himself would walk up to them and would ask them to leave, saying that they made it look like Jesus doesn't heal anymore. The pastor was peacefully confronted, but he refused to change, so he kicked us out and, through a restraining order brought to our door, told us that if we ever stepped on the grounds of the church or church property we would be arrested. Because of how this church treated me (I was only 13), I completely stopped believing in God or that He Loved me. At first I thought, these people, as Christians, claim to have God abiding in their hearts, so how can they treat me this way -- and how can God allow it? And then I altogether stopped believing that God existed.
But these people weren't Christians. They were of a different religion -- of a religion, actually. They weren't transformed, changed, abiding in Christ and allowing Christ to abide within them. They claimed one thing, but acted completely against everything it stood for.
After a while of not believing in God and with a lot of tough stuff happening in my life, I got really low. I came to the point where I learned that no one and nothing of this world satisfies. I decided that if there was a God, then I had to find Him and find out who He is, and if there wasn't, then I didn't want to live because I couldn't stand to go on as I was. So, I asked God (if there be a God, I added, of course) to prove Himself and His Love to me within one month or I would give up (big threat).
The month passed, and nothing had happened. But then I realized that this was good, because if something had happened then God would be meeting my demands, on my time schedule, and I would be controling Him -- thus, He would not be God because I would be. Strangely encouraged, I decided that I would not give up after all, but would seek Him and allow Him, if He existed and did, in fact, Love me, to prove Himself and His Love to me on His terms -- in His way and in His timing.
Not long afterwards, God proved Himself and His existence and Love for me in a way that I have never doubted Him or His Love since.
He is the One True God, the only God, and One who Loves us very, very much. And He is abundantly Faithful and Righteous and Good.

I have been praying for the person you mentioned as I was writing this. Thank you for sharing and may God bless you!

Nicole

P.S. I just wanted to clarify something that I said because I've been thinking it over a lot. I said that 9 years ago I didn't believe that God existed or that He Loved me, at all, and, also, that because of how that particular church treated me that I completely stopped believing in God or that He Loved me. That's not true. I meant to tell you the truth, of course, but I think that I made the mistake of telling you what happened explained only by my limited and confused perspective at the time.
In Psalm 44:24 it says, "Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?" But I don't think that later the psalmist would look back, from the light of future perspective and the revealing of God's Faithfulness, whether presently understood all the time or not, and say that God did truly forget their misery and oppression -- even though he apparently once thought so.
I need to apologize because I believe I made the mistake of doing just that in my description of past events.

I stopped actively fully believing and struggling to trust in God and His Love, at that time. I really, really doubted Him. But I did still believe to an extent because I prayed. At the time, I was trying to get away from everything church related because I had been hurt so much so I basically shut my eyes to the Truth, somewhat, and hardened my heart, in a way. I cautiously sought Truth, but I cringed at what had been labeled truth and had wounded me with lies (hypocrites and the hypocritical beliefs of the church I attended). I did not believe that God didn't exist or didn't Love. I feared terribly that He didn't Love me. And I was angry at Him for allowing what had happened to me so when I heard someone say that they didn't believe that God existed then I allowed in my mind the possibility for that belief, but because of my foundation and the way I was brought up, I never did really take that belief up personally, as I might have, at the time, convinced myself that I did.

I'm so sorry for my error. It was not intentional. I was just being careless in my description of the facts as opposed to my view -- I didn't separate them so that I could describe everything clearly and accurately. I was writing the last part thinking about how I felt at the time and not thinking in terms of what really was now that I can look back and see the whole picture. I hope this clarified everything well.

Thanks for your input, Tom!

Just as a note to Ryan, though, be sure that when or if you bring up points, like 3 and 4, that you are attempting to show the person God's Love and Faithful, Righteous Character through the truth that you speak, rather than trying to prove that you are right by the truth that you speak.
God does as He pleases and has a right to, true, but that probably won't be the most encouraging thing to highlight to someone who doesn't yet know how much He truly Loves them. God does as He pleases, and Scripture teaches that. But for that to have the correct impact, let us first teach others what Scripture teaches us about what pleases God so that they will understand that all that He does, that is as He pleases, is just and fair and right and good.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to avoid the truth or eliminate from our witness of God's Truth things that are offensive. I'm just encouraging you (and myself) to witness each truth in light of God's Love.
He not only had a right to punish man for sin that brought forth the fall, but by the Laws of His Righteous Character He had to. But (and here's what draws us to Him) He, in His great Love for us, was merciful to us and gave His only Son to take the full punishment for all that we did and will ever do wrong.