God's immeasurable love is the central theme, as powerfully illustrated by John 3:16, which signifies a deep call from God's heart to humanity's dire need. The sermon explores the concept of 'deep calling unto deep,' comparing God's profound love to the unfathomable depths of the ocean, emphasizing that human language and understanding cannot fully grasp its extent. It highlights Jesus Christ as the pivotal center of God's plan and human longing, contrasting the inadequacy of works and law for salvation with the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice. Ultimately, the message calls for reconciliation with God through faith in Jesus, presenting Him as the irresistible magnet drawing all people to Himself.
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The God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Now we spoke on this last week, so I'm spending our time this morning on this same verse. In the Old Testament you read a text like this, deep call unto deep, that the noise of thy walketh, thou shalt all thy grave and thy willows have passed over me. In other words, that's a reference to the cross. Deep calleth unto deep, At the noise of thy water spout, Thou thy ways and thy willows have gone over me. What is the death, the first death, and what is the second death?
Deep calleth unto deep, out against the deep, deep love of God, calling at Calvary to the deep, deep dire need of man. Oh, the depths of your need. Many of them don't realize how great, how desperate, how deep their need really is. And here is God. Out of the depths of his heart, he's calling, calling for you. When Nansen was exploring in the north, that great explorer... He wanted to know the depths of the water. Then they came to an open place where there was water.
He would like to know the depths of the water in that area. Before that was necessary. He sat down with big long ropes, waited at the end, and kept letting the rope down, but finally he came to the end of the rope and no body. So he asked his men to find more ropes, and they found all the ropes they had. in their heart. Every time he had time or upon he would say, it's deeper than that. It's deeper than that. It's deeper than that. And let me say about the love of God, if I were to use all the language at my command, I'd say at the end, God's love is deeper than that.
If I were to use every illustration that I know concerning the love of God, I'd say it's deeper than that. If I were to tell you to read every book written, and there's been many books written on the sufferings of Christ and the love of God, we have to say the Lord God is wither than that. You cannot plumb the dead while God's amazing love to fool sinners. If we want to see God's love, we see it as ever. For God so loved the world that he gave as only begotten son. that who, if you ever believe in him, should not perish, has ever lasting life.
One time a young poet, at least she thought she was a poet, and he wrote a number of poems. She took it to an editor to find out the cost of putting her poems in a book, and would he do it. Hello, he asked the young lady, he said, What are your poems about? Oh, she said... Love, all about love. Well, he said, would you mind telling me what love is? I'd like to know it. Well, she said, love is gazing upon a lily pond at night. Beneath the shilling moonbeams, and the lilies are in bloom, and she looked up when she said. He said, sure, that's not love.
Love is getting out a warm bed on a cold winter's night. to pick water bottles for ailing children. That's love. Love is doing something at great inconvenience to your test. There's so much today that call over this lot of gush and flush and mush. It's not true love at all. True love is a rare thing today, going to great inconvenience to do something for another. All the inconvenience the Lord Jesus went to in order to display the love of God. He came to this world, he churned through the veil of tears, he went to the cross of Calvary and he poured out his life.
God, here's the love of God. Can you tell me any English one from the depth of that mighty love? How wonderful is God's love. In one language, in Goyan Island language, love is translated, the heart is calling. calling for thee. And when they use that translation in the Bible, they have it, the deep calling, God. Here then is the deep, deep love of God. In John three sixteen, calling to you who are not saved as more. God appealing to the world as a whole and appealing to the individual in particular. God says, I want you to understand a little of my love.
God granted you may. and responds to his call. You will listen to this verse, and this is last week, that are fifty-five words. The center word is sun. If you take the sun out, you have God on one side, you have man on the other. You don't have the cross all. For God so loved the world that he gave his only document at endless. Then you have concerning man, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, everlasting life. Jesus Christ is the center of this verse. God on one side and man on the other side.
Let me tell you this, that Christ is the center of all God's joy, all God's delight, and all God's pleasure. And Christ is the center, too, of all the men you long for and yearn for. Have you discovered that? Jesus Christ is the center of everything that God loves and delights in, and also the center of everything. The heart of man yearns for and prays. He will find it in Christ. How happy we are that Jesus Christ is the center here. You know, true pleasure is found in person, not in being. Are we going much, Orville?
He's saying, My sister... In Southern Ontario, the old home town, I'll be two blocks from the old homestead where we'll all block up. I'll likely go and see the old house. Much of it, the workmanship of my father, the brickwork and everything. Then, although I'll look at those things, I'll not be satisfied. It's a somewhat melancholy thing to go there and see those things that I did. Why does it mean so little to me? Because the two that I love are not there anymore. It's an empty house. My love was in person, not in faith.
The things are disappointing. Ah, but the persons are the ones who have it. What will heaven be like without Christ? Why the pearly gates, the pitch of gold, and all the precious truths and gems and all heaven's glory will mean nothing. Yet Jesus Christ was not there. Jesus said it of everything, Jesus said of everything, There are loved ones in the glory, and they wait for me to come, and they're walking at the river I recall to the street. There is an Eden there, and shall bring my welcome home, but I long to see my failure further off.
Take Christ out of heaven, it's an empty place. Our joys and delights are not in things, but in the person, the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore you have him the center of this amazing place. You have God on one side and man on the other. How did this situation come about? Came the boat because of sin. Adam sinned. That's where the preach came in. Adam slipped from the presence of the Lord when... He sinned, he loosed on long. That's why he hid. Adam ran and he hid behind the tree in the garden.
God came down in the cool of the day. How did God come down? Did he come down upon a chariot of fire? Did he have a sword of flame? Was he going to execute judgment about Adamine? No. God came down at the cool of the day and over the language that passeth an injured man. Adam, where are thou, Adam? Where are thou? What is this that thou has done? God's seeking his fallen creature. And as I was afraid, and I hid behind the tree in the house. Why was Adam afraid? Was God a tyrant? Was God a beast?
Was God done with delight and in judgment? No. God's a God of love. Oh, we stop to think of how God saw those signatures in the beginning. How little Adam and Eve knew and understood of the heart of God. God loved them and he saw them. Here's the home. You go there to visit one afternoon. Shortly the father and husband will be home. You see three of her children laying and ranting on the kitchen floor. running here and there, having a good time, then all of a sudden they stop and they scatter. One was under a bed and the other behind a door on their own.
What's the cause of it? You hear footsteps. In a noble degree, a towering man steps in the door and you try to size up the situation. Neither this man's a brute beast and beats the kid to their aid of him. Even after they've done something wrong during the day, no mother will tell father, and they will be followed. One or two things is true. Why is man afraid of God? Is God a tyrant? Is God a slave driver? Is God a taskmaster? Is he one that's waiting for a moment opportunity to vent his vengeance upon man?
Or because there is sinned? that man's afraid from God, a man of sin. That's why there's fear in the heart of man concerning God. There's no longer the right to fear God when they've sinned again. But then I would, for you this morning, understand a little of the love of God. I look out if God's judgment in occasion requires it. Yet God loves this world and he loves your heart. He loves your soul, and He wants to save you. If your sins that God detest, that your sins that God hates, if your sins that God will punish, he must punish it.
Sin in order to be consistent with his holy character. Therefore, man today, because he has sinned, he's afraid of God. God is trying to get a cross to you, but although He hates your sin, He loves you, but He wants to save you. You're going to cling to your sin and have to suffer the consequences. So how are we going to bridge the gulf between God and man? The long way, the great distance between the Holy God and the sinful man. Can I work my way back? Can my hands build a bridge? No. Adam made pigly so that I could try and hide themselves.
For they went and hid behind the trees of the garden. The works of your hand will not save you. The works of your hands will not pinch the gulf between you and God. Yet today there are millions and millions of people trying to live a good life engaging in all kinds of good work, thinking that's what will save us. Friend, works will not save us. It's not by works of righteousness which we have done with the calling of his mercy. He has saved us. If people are trying to work their way to heaven, I don't find the center word here. Works will not take it. Nor do I find the center word of this earth.
The law. The law cannot save the penchantment. So many are trying to keep the law, hoping that the law will take them to heaven. Yet there are enough to admit they haven't checked it. God didn't say, if you do, you're going to keep the law. If you keep two or three, I'll take you to heaven. God didn't say that. Then you've got to keep the law. And no man or woman ever has saved this track. And so the center word is no law here. You can't be reconciled with God's law. And yet the Ten Commandments are being preached from many pulpits this morning, and the audience is urged to try and keep it.
Then there's only condemnation for those who would try to oppose God through the law. When the law was given, God said, I'd just stand afar off. Even in a beast of coast and cut it out, he would be cut through. God told Moses to tell the congregation, just stand in the distance. Don't let them try and try and try and try to see me on top of this mouth. If they do, they'll be consumed. They've got to stand in a distance. That's where the law puts men at a distance. At a distance. How different love is. Love draws love track. But the law puts you at a distance, far from God.
The law agonates your sin, agonates your condition, and puts you far off from God. Yet many are trying to keep the Ten Commandments, hoping the Ten Commandments will take them to heaven. No, the Ten Commandments will not take you to heaven. The Ten Commandments have likened unto a mirror. A mirror, you look into the mirror, you see some dirt on your face. The mirror won't take dirt off. If the mirror could talk, he would tell you to get that roof and a little water and remove the dirt. The Ten Commandments shows you you're a sinner, but the Ten Commandments cannot put away your sin, for there's no blood in the law. Then you can liken the law onto a plumb line.
He's nascent. He's so confident in his ability, he hooked with a straight stretch of wall. No need using a plumb line. I know my skill. Finally, someone insists when he goes up the number of feet that he used the plumb line. And at the insistence of this individual, he does. And the plumb line is let down. And it shows some detail. Some depression. plumline, you blade plumbline, is the law alongside your right friend. It'll show some ugly defect. Deficiency. Yet the law will show you where you sin, but the plumbline will straighten that war.
The plumbline with evil decurs in it, and a poor workmanship, but the plumbline will not straighten up that war. The law of the Ten Commandments will show you where you have sinned and how you have sinned against God. But the bottom line, the law will not take. We won't straighten your condition out. The law can do nothing to straighten out your condition. The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Christ is the one who pays the toll. He's the one who stepped in for each year, not the Ten Commandments. He may use the law. or a lantern as a symbol of the law.
You're going down a lane in some dark light. Train there to you. You may have a flashlight or a lantern to show your way. It shows the rocks and the palm before you, but the light doesn't remove them. The light doesn't make the pathway smooth. The Ten Commandments shows man what's before him, the fixed palm, the sin. that Jesus Christ then was straightened over the past. The law does not say, Jesus Christ alone says. And so the middle word here is not the law. The middle word is son.
For God so loved the world that he gave it only begotten son. Jesus Christ stepped into the Greek, and the verse reads beautifully from beginning to end. beginning with God, then ending with life. And if you're going to enjoy that life, friend, you've been obtained from that God. If you're going to enjoy that life with God, then it means that Jesus Christ is the only answer, for he's the one who sent him to that might-waltent heaven for being your lost holy life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that who shall ever believe in him shall perish but have everlasting life.
How wonderful is that verse when John fell thirty-three. And I, if I be lifted up, brother, will draw all men unto me. You see, the law puts you afar off. That's the Old Testament. The Old Testament contains a dying of distance. The law puts a man in a distance. But the New Testament is the doctrine of nearness. Let us draw near in full assurance of faith. That's the message of the New Testament. Just the opposite of you. Lord, put your thought off. The New Testament version of Jesus Christ then, Jesus. So nice, a very nice God.
Here I could not be, for in the person of his tongue I am here with me. And so Jesus Christ saw. What a magnet he is. Why he was magnetic at his very first. He threw the attention of heaven when the angels sang. He threw the attention of the workers when the shepherds came. He threw the attention of the wise men from past. They were drawn as by a magnet. To the child Jesus. Jesus Christ also drew the attention of Herod even the wicked. What a lie. There was something about this child born in Bethlehem, the structure of the heart of Herod.
Oh, the magnetism of this day at Ephraim. Even when he was a child of twelve, the strides of the Pharisees, he came together to hear them, to ask them questions. Oh, the magnetism of this child, magnetic personality. We read various things in the Bible concerning him. They could not get to him because of the crash this day. People gathered around. Four thousand and one who came to five thousand and another gave. What's the crowd gathering for? What's the attraction? Jesus Christ. He's in their midst. What a magnate he is.
They came to him from every quarter of the Bible there. Even children scrambled for his knees. He could not be hid. Either curiosity or concern brought them to him. Some came out of curiosity, others came out of concern, but they came because of the magnetism of this man, like Jesus. Think of his magnetic passion, not only his personality, but his passion, because we go from his person to his passion, from his deity to his death, the character to his cross. Peter and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, I draw all men unto thee.
How wonderful the field of doubt of the Lord tells me. Three times in John's gospel you have him lifted up. In John chapter three, fourteen, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Here you have the reason for thought. Then you have the revelation of the cross in chapter eight, verse twenty-eight. Here when ye have lifted up the Son of Man, Then shall we know that I am he? Here you have the revelation of the cross. Why he came? Why he died? He's the son of God. God's only begotten son. Tell to it. Then you have the reign of the cross and the text I put on John twelve, thirty-two.
I, if I be lifted up from the earth of all. All then. On to it. How wonderful that he's been lifted up. Lift it up upon the earth. There's his death. Lift it up out of the earth. There's his resurrection. Lift it up from the earth. There's his ascension back to the Father. On the earth. Out of the earth. From the earth. Lift it up. Think of his magnetic power. We see magnetism of his personality. And then his passion. With all his power. If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me.
He's going to lift him up. Man needs to be lifted. He'll notice this, that Jesus Christ is a magnet. And where is he? He's in heaven. And he said, if you lift me up, you preach me, I'll draw all men up to me. Let me tell you this. If you leave out the cross, if you leave out Calvary and keep Jesus Christ on earth, as a pattern, as an example. Then, then, there's no message at all. And there's no magnanimity. There's no knowing power in preaching the life of Jesus Christ. He said, and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all in unto thee.
It's when you preach Christ crucified. That's what God wants you to see. You take the magnetism out of magnet and all you've got is a piece of piece of sapphire. You take the cross out of your pain, saying you've nothing. You've nothing left, that man can lay hold of for salvation. It's a trough he's drawing to himself. He was on the cross, but now he's in heaven a living man, and he said, I'll draw it up to me. Divine faith. And there's the tragedy of the day, so folks that were not preaching Christ and him to God. How sad, how sad. How the devil has taken over and deceived the multitude, because the men in the pulpit are preaching everything but Jesus Christ and his people.
The magnetism has gone out of the mess. You think Christ and him crucified is the thumping that will tug at and pull at the human heart. If I lift it up, I'll draw all men onto the whole magnetism. Okay, come unto me all ye that paper net heavy laden, and I will give you that. Doesn't that pull at your heartstrings? He doesn't say I will drag all men to me. He's not dragging any. He wants you to come willingly. He wants you to come of your field. He said, I'm not going to force you.
I'm going to lay hold you and drag you against your will. I'll try and draw you. But you've got to make a fish. You've got to make a shark. Yes, you must come, dealing with it. It's universal. I draw all men unto me, every man. The driving and the dragging make pace in the future. Today he's drawing men by the course of love. The friend that they've become, he's going to drag those who reject them. Those who are lost, he dragged them out of their lonely tomb, to stand before him at the great white throne.
That's something you will not be able to resist. You wouldn't come when you heard the gospel preached. You wouldn't come when you heard his death untowardly. But now the day of judgment has come, he's going to drag you, yes, against your will. Against all resistance, he's going to drag you before his throne. He'll have to meet Then he'll do some driving. Oh, the driving he'll do in that day. Remember, he drove Adam and Eve out to the garden. You know, concerning Cain, Cain was driven out from the peasants of the Lord. John chapter two, he made a whip of some cords, and he drove them out of the temple.
Yes, in the coming day he'll be dragged before his presence is thrown, condemned to eternal punishment, and driven from before his feet. It will ever last be a slave. If we thank God, he's drawing, sir, he's trying to join us for the course of life. I wonder if it'll come and come to him now. So, therefore, God told us the word that he gave as only the one son, or proof to ever believe that in a sin should not perish but have it after in life. How marvelous is this, sir. The hand of God, stretched out over it over it. And he wants you to be reckoned by him to the death of his son.
Will you let one in Christ's hands with God? Over Jesus Christ on the cross? The one who stepped into the glee? The only one who could fill the gap? God has come halfway in this verse? Will you come the other half? Will you come with a lost and guilty sinner? I think I told you one time of the father who had a dispute with his family's only son, the only son, the only child. And the young man had a lot of his father about him, self-will, covenants. They had quite an argument. The father had let me tell you one thing, my boy. As long as you gather your food up my table, put your feet under my table, you'll do what I say.
I'm on this hunt. And if you don't like it, where's the door? The young man picked up his hat, he said, that's all I want to know. Goodbye, I'll never see you again. And those were glorious. Like the group, the mother lost. Finally, the mother forgives. She begged with her husband to try and get him plenty charred. Father Harley knew where to begin, and he was reluctant. He threw less stubbornness, plenty of... Finally, he discovered where the boy was, and he wrote him a letter. Your mother is tying.
I'll hold it once. The boy received a letter, and his father a short and dropped one. Kind of like turning it up, or crushing it in his hand and pulling away, says, I'm not going home. I'll keep my word. Lord, he sat and thought upon it. He thought, now that mother died. I'll never see it again. I love my mother. I know what my father did to me. My mother wasn't sympathetic. I know. I'm going to see my mother, and he was at home. As he walked in the door, taped with his mother's bedroom, standing on the other side of the bed, there was a father.
He walked over to the other side of the bed. He didn't even look up. of his father. He had looked at his mother. I had her over an assistant. He held his hand, and the son of man seemed holy. He counted for a few minutes, perhaps from how he was feeling. I'm feeling all right. At the end, he was a close. He reached our hand to her husband. He didn't say a word, but he knew what it meant. She took his hand. He took the hand of her son. He knew it together. She held him away, and he said, do what is God. And with that, he held back upon the exhilaration, he passed away, leaving the Father and the Son, holding hands over her cross.
Father and Son were reconciled to the death of the mother. And the only way you can be reconciled to God is through the death of Jesus Christ. God is appealing to you this morning. He's appealing to you to be reconciled to him. God doesn't have to be reconciled to man. He's unmanned or hard. If man who has sinned against God, God is trying to reconcile you unto himself. Look at these texts. In Sec. Corinthians five twenty. All things are of God who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ. and has given unto us the ministry of reconciliation. So if that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and has committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation.
Now we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you, in Christ's head being reconciled to God. God wants to reconcile you through his head. How is he doing it? He has sent all his ministers as ambassadors to tell you message that he loves you, that works won't save you, the law won't save you, but his son will. What an ambassador. An ambassador is a representative of a sovereign state at the cost of another country. And that's exactly what every Christian is, is an ambassador.
We then as ambassadors for Christ. Yes, we represent a sovereign state. Sovereign state that's God's kingdom. As we're appealing to your heart, we reconcile to him. An ambassador is an agent of high rank with a special message. Friend, you're ambassadors for Christ. We have a special message. It's a message of reconciliation. An ambassador is a free man. Oscines in a hostile nation. Thank God in this world that's hostile against God. There are those who are chained by the grace of God, their ambassador in.
And they're here. Three men. The world in bondage. For war. An ambassador is supported by his government. And all the government of heaven, all the power of God is behind. In support of. All is ambassadors. who go forth with the message of reconciliation. An ambassador as well who speaks with authority. He calls the power of his government behind him. He said concerning the Lord Jesus Christ that he speaks, not as a stride, but as one having authority. When you preach the Bible, you preach the sufferings of Christ, you're speaking with authority.
What authority there is in the Word of God and in the King of the Cross. Let me tell you something else about an ambassador. He's called home before war is declared. Called home before war is declared. One of these days, God's certainly going to declare war on this world, and things are shaping up. Watch the Middle East. Watch it. That's where God is looking. That's where the moves are being made to fit into the Bible's prophecy. Watch it. Time is near, but God's going to declare war on this world.
It's one thing he'll do before he does. Before he tells his armies to march, before he unleashes heaven's artillery, against his school, God's going to call home his ambassador. Everyone's trained by the grace of God. Everyone's going again. We are ambassadors for Christ. God will call it home. These are lovely scriptures. This is it in the Philippians. that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow out things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth. I want you to get those three places. Things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth. Now know that Colossians one place.
And having made peace to the blood of his cross, thine him, Christ, to reconcile all things unto himself. Thine him, I say, whether they be things in earth and things in heaven, that he will live. under the earth. When it comes to every knee bowing to the person of Christ, in grace or in judgment, he says, Under the earth, every knee shall bow. When it comes to reconciliation, it is heaven and on earth under the earth. There's no reconciliation under the earth. There's no reconciliation in heaven. You're reconciled in this life, not in the next.
Think of that lovely text that follows that. And you that were sometimes alienated, and enemies in your mind are wicked words. Yet now have he reconciled how, in the body of his flesh through death, to present you wholly and unvainable and unapprovable in his life. Reconciled with God through the death of his life. That's the only way of reconciliation. Jesus Christ saw the great... between a holy God and a civil man, and he stepped into it. That's why the sun in the middle were a word of his amazement. Tonight or today, God is heavenly, and he has stood long and out of your heart's door.
And what he is trying to win you is trying to draw you to itself to his son. I said at the beginning, a stretched hand is seen over Calvary. And that's God's hand. God's hand. Are you going to come to the cross? Are you going to put out your hands, your sinful hands, and clap hands with God over the death of his son, the one who died for you? Oh, the grace that grew salvation from him. Oh, the grace that brought it down to man. Oh, the mighty love that God dispends at terror.
Amen. At terror. At the place of the point of God's ability. Will you then this morning as a foolish man, lost and helpless, and in a measure for you, until you come to Christ, who will take in this message, where you have the heart calling to God, dealing to you in all your deep, deep needs. Will you come this morning? Will you come to them? Your works won't save you. The church won't save you. Baptism won't save the law won't save you. Your only hope is Jesus Christ. He's the center of this verse. He'll be eventually the center of the universe. He's the center of all attraction in heaven.
Will you make him the center of your attraction this morning? We're not asking you to come and go to the Albany Gospel Chapel. We ask you to come to Christ. He's the one we present. He's the magnum. He's the dry power. Has he been chungy at tugging at your heartstrings? He's chugged at one. But God so loved him that he gave his only begotten tongue that he should have able to conceive. Not who shall ever work at court him, but who shall ever believe of any should not perish, but have everlasting life. Our Father in heaven, in the name of the Lord Jesus, we come to believe.
We ask thy blessing upon thy grave. We thank you, we have such a stage in the face. O the metaphysim of Christ and our world. Now live in the ring of thy light hand, the living man. All power is given unto thee. May the mighty part of that magnetic personality may hold some heart, four hearts in this morning's meeting. bring them to himself. May they be reconciled with God through the death of his Father. We as an ambassador have done our death, we deliver our mercy. May someone take it in and be saved of heart.