The love of God is presented as a transcendent theme, particularly relevant in challenging times, and is explored through its manifestation, measure, and manner. God's love is manifested in the person of Jesus Christ, whose sinless life and deity reveal the Father's heart, and its measure is seen supremely at Calvary, where Christ's sacrifice demonstrates its immeasurable depth and breadth. The manner of God's love is revealed in His desire to make believers His children, granting them a present salvation and an eternal inheritance as co-heirs with Christ. This profound love calls for a response of holy separateness from the world and a practical demonstration of love towards one another, reflecting Christ's own sacrifice and bearing His reproach.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 1.87 → restored 4.25
and the third chapter, and we'll read the first three verses together. One John chapter three. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons or the children of God. Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
And every man or every one that sat this hope in him or set on him purifies himself. even as he is pure. The Apostle John has been called the Apostle of Love, no doubt because love seems to be his transcending theme, whether it be in his Gospel or in his Epistles. I think on the continent somewhere the Gospel of John has been called the bosom of Christ, a very lovely expression indeed. And you remember that the Apostle John was one who leaned upon the bosom of Jesus.
That too is very significant. For it was the disciple who seemed to be nearer to the heart of Christ, leaning on his bosom continually, was the apostle that was chosen by God to express the wonders, the glorious wonders of the bosom expressed in the personal work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I think we need to be more occupied with this theme, especially because of the days in which we live. If we look around, we get quite depressed and discouraged because of conditions. Not only in this country, but in the old country and everywhere you look, we see things deteriorating.
Moral standards are falling. There is lawlessness increasing. The love of many is waxing cold, even in the things of the Lord. There are strikes and strikes, and as we have just been reminded, even murders. So we have this very sad contrast in the world today, the hatred of man expressed because of his wicked heart. But how wonderful it is that when we can rise above such conditions and be occupied with its transcending theme. the person of our Lord Jesus, the very expression of God's heart of love.
So the more we get occupied with world conditions, the more we will find them to be so withering. Matthew, I believe that we should be exercised about world conditions in order that we might be able to pray the more intelligently. But we need to be occupied with this wonderful theme even more and more, and we will find occupation with it will be indeed a soul of lifting. Now I like to think of the love of God in a threefold way. First of all, its manifestation, secondly its measure, and thirdly its manner. First of all, in regard to its manifestation, we might ask this question, when was the love of God manifested as far as this world was concerned?
Well, we look around and we see in creation the manifestation and the demonstration of his wisdom and power. Even in a lumbar place like the park of the palms, we see his handiwork and his duty expressing his wisdom and omnipotence. And even the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shall impart his handiwork. But there's one thing that creation could never do. it could never reveal the heart of God. Shall I say, we see particularly in creation the hand of God, but not his heart. Well, then, how was God to reveal to us the wonders of his bosom?
How was he to reveal to us the love of his heart? How was that marvelous grace and infinite love to be manifested? Thank God we know the answer. And into this world maybe two thousand years ago there came a person. We've been reminded of this glorious fact already this morning. The person of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to be resident in a body that was prepared for him by his God. One who was absolutely stopless and stainless, undefiled and undefilable, the one who was the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.
And in that true tabernacle there was the Shekinah glory. For he never laid his glory aside when he came into this world. And very often those linen curtains were drawn aside. On the Mount of Transfiguration, for instance. And the Shekinah glory shone forth. So the Apostle John himself said, the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him, or he hath fully told him out. And so into this world there came the glorious, fearless, fragrant person of our Lord Jesus Christ, to reveal to men and women and boys and girls, the wonderful love of God's heart.
Oh, let us lay a hold of the truth and never let it go, friends. The perfect manhood and deity were inseparably united. You cannot divide them. This is a truth that we must hold very, very dearly in this our day, friends, because there are those, I'm sorry to say, who have taught that the Lord Jesus could sin. They would admit that he didn't sin. Oh yes, they will say that in him was no sin, he knew no sin, he did no sin, he had no sin. But ah, comes that unworthy thought that there was a possibility that he could sin.
Oh, why was the temptation allowed? Well, I'll tell you a friend. The temptation was allowed, it odds us to prove that he could not sin. And as we see the gold tested in the tires of that temptation, we see the glory of his sinlessness shining forth all the more, and Satan's dart falling harmlessly to the ground. Oh, we want to guard these precious truths in connection. with our precious Lord. He did no sin, he had no sin, he knew no sin, and he could not sin.
He was the fine power mingled with oil, and there was not one coarse grain in his life. All his virtues and excellencies were balanced and blended. He never had to retrace a single step, nor recall a single word. He was perfection, and in everything he did, in all his words, in all his acts, they bore the stamp of absolute perfection. I say this, friends, because this is the one in whom love of God was told forth in all its splendor and in all its fullness.
All the glory of the grace shining in the Savior's face, telling sinners from above, God is love, and God is the love. And so the same writer of this epistle assures us, In this was the love of God manifested, in that he sent forth his only begotten Son into the world, that we should live through death. And as we trace his perfect pathway, we see him laying his hands so gently upon the heads of the little children and blessing them, telling the world that God loves the little children so dearly and intensely, as we see him putting his hand upon the ostracized leper.
He was declaring to the world that God loves the sinner in all his loathomness, but he hates the sin. And so it could go on. Everywhere, in all his ways, he demonstrated the fact that God is a love. But when you think of its measure, Where do we see the measure of God's love at one place and one place only, at the place called Calvary? And as we gaze upon that holy scene, as we have already this morning, in the breaking of the bread, our hearts are overwhelmed with the sense of our own unwillingness.
To wonders we confess, the wonder of his glorious life. and our own worthlessness. I am so glad that our brother, preceding this message, gave out that hymn which was very fitting. Seeing from his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and the love flow mingled down, did he have such love and sorrowly, or songs composed, so rich, her crown? And that sight of sight is enough to break and melt every self. And thank God for those in this company who can say, yes, I remember the time and the sight of that holy supper broke down my heart.
And since then I have had the consciousness of being the Lord. I am my beloved and my beloved mine. And so at that place we see as nowhere else the marvelous infinite undounded, unmeasured, unpathomed, unparalleled, unmerited, love of God in Christ. I well remember when my wife and I crossed the Atlantic, of course we didn't see land for days on end between the Azores and Bermuda. All that we saw was one mighty vast expanse of blue, one great circle of blue.
But it didn't matter what time we went on board the deck in the daytime and we looked around, it seemed as if we were exactly in the very center of that circle if so we were. And I used to think how the children in the slate of Stanley Birmingham used to sing in the Sunday School. Wide wide as the ocean, high as the heaven above, deep as the deepest sea is my Savior's love. I, those who are unworthy, still am a child of his care. For his word teaches me that his love reaches me everywhere. And it was a great thought to my own soul, then, that we were ever in the circle of God's love, even before this world was.
Even before the divine power took the clay and out of it formed, Adam proved to be such a foe. God, our foreseeing God, had prepared a way whereby man could be welcomed back into his presence again. And if all thy hands had made the sun to rule the day, or earth foundations laid off passion Adam's clay, what sorts of love and mercy flowed in thy great heart of love, O God. The thing that they were in, God thought before the world was formed, and before his hand flung into the heavens, myriads of stars, and formed the worlds, we unworthy creatures were in his blessed, loving thoughts.
What a God we have, and that we were included in that purpose, which was in the bottom of the harbor, even before the world began. So, dear friends, as we turn our eyes again to Calvary, we see that one upon that central cross, dying in all his agony and shame and blood. We see the mighty love of God like an ocean. It cannot be palmed. It cannot be measured. Somebody has well expressed the thought that John three sixteen is a drop of language and yet it contains the oceans of God's love.
That is perfectly true. It's John that records that wonderful message. And I think that in that verse we do see the four dimensions of God's love. When I went to school I was told that the solids could only have three dimensions, length, breadth and thickness. But when the Apostle Paul is describing this wonderful love, he brings in the fourth dimension, because it needs it. The breadth, the length, the depth, and the height. Having referred to the wisdom of God that cannot be measured, he refers also to the love of God, the love of Christ, which also cannot be measured.
For God so loved the world, there we see the breadth of it, dear friends. It's so wise that it embraces the world, all nations, hundreds and times. Marvelous when we can think of that embrasive love in such a way as to be able to declare that the apostle himself, he loved me. He gave himself for me. Think of the breadth of his love in the contrast of our own human love, which is so narrow in its limits. Our love only extends, usually, to friends and loved ones, rightly so, of course, but does our love extend to our enemies?
His love was so broad and magnificent when he loved and when he died. He died for his enemies as well as for his friends. Greater love hath no man than this. that a man laid down his lunch for his friends. For God so loved the world, then, is the breath, that he gave his only begotten son. Here we find the length. Because, after all, love is always proved by the length to which it will go. And how far did the love of God go? It reached right from the highest heaven down to earth.
And thank God it reached you and it reached me. That He gave His only begotten Son. Oh, the love of God, His willingness. No wonder we read this morning that the Lord could come forth, the eternal Son, with His expression upon His lips, lo, I come. in the volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will oh my God and that blessed omniscient one knew what the doing of that will would involve the sorrows of the tree and the anguish of Saul and the forsaking of his God but he was willing to come and the father was willing to give nearly two thousand years ago God gave his best He gave the darling of his heart.
It seemed almost, I say almost, as if heaven itself was empty when the wholeness of the God was seen manifest in flesh here below. He gave his only begotten son, that it shows, for I say, the length to which God's love will go. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish. Here we find the death of it. That dark word perish would imply that all those who reject the Saviour of sinners and do death parts of the Spirit of God will perish. We have to say this lovingly and tenderly, for the benefit of those who may be saying and hiding behind this fact that God is love.
You see, the offense if God is going to act, he cannot act upon one attribute alone. He must act with all his attributes working harmoniously together. And the epistle before us which tells us that God is love, first of all, declares that God is light. And for those who reject his overtures of mercy and love will have to face one day a God of light who is justice and judgment. Ah, that's a very solemn thought, isn't it? And we have to be very faithful in our ministry and declare the doctrine of eternal punishment.
But this only enhances the work of Christ and magnifies the love of God. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish. How simple. How glorious. How divine. And the reason why our Savior built off the depth of God's law is this, that in order that this might be, this blessed, glorious person went right down into the deep mire of Calvary. He allowed those warm waters of God's judgment to overflow him. He went down into the depths in order that we might be taken from the depths and one day transported to the heights.
I sink in deep mile where there is no standing. I am coming to deep waters where the floods overflow. The approach has broken my heart. I am full of heaviness. I look for some to take pity on me, and I found no man. Neither found I any to comfort me. My God, my God, I hast thou forsaken me. I'll tell you friends, in order that we may never perish. Then we come to the fourth dimension.
What is it? The height of God's love. Well, it's expressed in this wonderful climax that one day we're going to be with Christ and like him. In heaven there's going to be a people for his Christ, a people like his Christ, and a people with his Christ. And that carries us up right to the very, shall I say, climax of God's love in Christ. There we have the measure of it, friends. And it's going to take us all eternity to find out what is the measure. And it will be, shall I say, an experience that will be never-ending.
Now, thirdly, we come to the manner of God's love. And it seems to me that this is what the apostle is stressing in this wonderful verse before us. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us? That we should be called the children of God. I say children because it seems to me that the apostle has before him more the relationship than the thought of sonship. Papa Paul, as we know, often referred to sonship, which reveals to us our responsibility, as well as our dignity, as sons of God. But that is not the thought behind the Apostle's mind here.
I think it's the fact of our relationship, the glory of it, so that we might enter into it more fully and appropriate all the wonderful truth connected with it. Beloved, now are we the children of God. We have a present salvation to enjoy and to enjoy to the whole. We who are saved by God, great are certainly enjoying it today, aren't we, in the course of the Lord as children of God. So it seems that the apostle is saying, in effect now, I want you to consider the manner of God's love that he has taken us, poor welfare, self-deserving sinners.
He has cleansed us through the blood of his son. Not only so, but he has been pleased to put us into his family and call us his own children. Wonder of wounds. That I can look into the face of a Christ holy God without a single fear. With the art is unreserved of a little child and Christ, Abba, The Spirit himself witnessed us with our spirit as we are the children of God. And if children then heirs, heirs of God and joined heirs with Christ.
Because I am related to the Lord Jesus in a tie or bond that can never sever all that belongs to him belongs to me. But I am a co-heir with God. And this relationship, friends, will never, never be broken by the course of time, nor by anything in time. But I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor death shall we be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
I don't know whether you can find it isn't included in that list. Some people seem to think they can, because they don't enjoy a present salvation in Christ. That statement alone is sufficient. Things present, all things become. Nothing will be able to separate us from that love of God, expressed in and through our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, this is the manner of God's love. It's a wonderful thing, you know, to be able to go into God's presence and to feel that we go into the presence of a father who is intensely interested in our welfare and that we can pour out our souls before him, whatever our need, we know that he's going to supply to be according to this will.
This is the manner of God's love that he has expressed in and through our Lord Jesus. Lord, have we already been praising the Lord in Psalm-hundred-and-three this morning? We've been thinking of his mighty deliverance and his pardoning grace. I couldn't help but think of those two contrasts brought before us. As high as that heaven is above the earth, so great is his mercy. toward them the free of him. What a wonderful contrast. How high is the heaven above the earth? No one can tell. We think of the moon a quarter of a million miles away.
We think of the sun, ninety-three millions of miles away as we go into the heavens. Very near neighbors indeed. When we think of stars, and there are many of them, among the billions in the heavens, there are thousands and thousands of light years away from this earth. We're going into space and we're baffled by the fantastic distance. A light year, of course, is the space that time that light will travel, traveling at a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second. The distance that light can travel at a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second per year.
You won't go out and you'll have a column of figures that wide. And yet as we look into the baffling space, we think of something and so one beyond the power of its power of God. The one who sits upon the underthrowed in all his glory and the splendors of his excellence. And God says in this great contrast, the far as the heaven is above the earth, as high as the heaven is above the earth, so great it is mercy toward them that fear him. It can never, never be measured. And then I thought of the other contrast of that, Brother Red, as far as the east is from the west.
So far have he removed our transgressions from us. Well, again, we'll say how far is the east from the west. Well, now I'm very glad the summit didn't say as far as the north is from the south. Oh, no, there's a reason for that, because after all, there is a measurable distance from the north to the south, from the north pole to the south pole, and as we know, the equator runs between. It can be measured. But who can measure the east from the west? No one. If I get into a boat today and I say to myself, well, I'm going to set my course to the west. And so I'll set the compass eastward.
Can you tell me when I would arrive at the west? If I went on sailing for the last day of my death, I would still be sailing east, unless I change my course, because the world is round. And so I love this figure that God uses in connection with our sins. As far as the east is from the west, can you measure it? So far have he removed our transgressions from us. He has put them right into the depths of the sea. He has cast them behind his back. He has blotted them out of his remembrance. Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
In this sense it isn't when God forgives he forgets. Well, of course we forget very often, do we not? And he thinks to me they all do we get, the more we forget. But there's no failing with our God. Oh no. It is a sovereign act on the part of our sovereign God. And he puts away our sins. And he says their sins and their iniquities. Will I remember? No more. Now it's because of these marvelous truths, the grace of our God, the mercy of our God, that we realize the wonderful truth of the pardon of our God.
and that we have gained, shall I say, have gained an entrance into his own family. And God is pleased to look upon us and call her, call us his children. We actually belong to the royal family of seven, do we not? This reminds me, when the Duke of Edinburgh came to Nassau on a visit, he's been visiting the Princess Margaret Hathford, also named after Princess Margaret, because she opened it some years ago. He came down Victoria Avenue, and I and the brother were standing on the corner when he came round in his car, and he gave us a very cheerful smile and a very happy wave of a hand, not always true with the Duke, of course.
And the brother standing near to me said, well, he's about to hold up as near to royalty as I'll ever be. I said, just a moment, friend. Do you not remember that we are in God's family? that we are related to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I will admit it would be a great privilege and a dignity to be associated with the royal family of Great Britain. But we are not merely associated with the royal family of Heaven. We are part of it. We are going to be in the presence of royalty in our state with reverence and worship this morning. And that throughout eternity And with all these glorious thoughts before us, we can enter into this truth.
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we, we can underscore those two words, that we, of all people, should be called the children of God. Why should I be an object of such redeeming love and grace? You feel something like Mephibosheth. He was overcome by David's love and kindness, remember, when he entered into his house of wine that he exclaimed, What is thy service? That thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am.
That meant something for a Jew to say that he was a dog. How much more to say that he was a dead dog. God. Why do I mention this? For one reason, friends, that when the love of our God expressed in Christ is fully appreciated and appropriated, it's going to lay us low before him and keep us in that humble place. We sang, where the whole realm of nature, ours, or mine, that were an offering far too small? Love so amazing, so divine, demands my heart, my life, my all.
But how did we start with him when I survey the wondrous cross amidst the Prince of Glory died? My richest gain I count but loss and poor contempt on all my gain. That should ever be the practical effect of gazing upon the cross, the principles of the cross applied in our own experience. We fall content upon our pride. We're taken up wholly and solely with the deep protection from the surpassing excellences of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we do indeed say, Let us praise the Lord with our whole being.
Bless the Lord, O my soul. And all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Now, the apostle goes on to say then, having brought before us the wonders of the love of God in Christ, therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not, for this reason. And the longer we live in this world, the more we realize how opposed it is to God and his things. And the more we live in this world, the more we'll realize how hostile the world is for the Christian. When our Lord Jesus Christ came into this scene, he was misunderstood. His mission of peace was rejected.
And the reaction of the world to his coming was simply this. Away with him. Away with him. We will not have this man's reign. over us. And not only so, but they led that fearless, fragrant person to a tree and nailed him to suffer and bleed and die. That's the world, Prince. Therefore the world knows us not, because we are identified with him. Not only in his death and in his burial, but also in his wonderful resurrection. And because we are identified with him, then the world knows us not either.
And don't be surprised if we're misunderstood by the world. The Lord would make this very clear to us this morning. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own. But ye are not of the world. Because I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates us. We know that it's perfectly true. If you go to the worldly and you discuss with him politics or the affairs of the nation, if you just discuss with him all temporal matters, it'll be all ears. But you know as well as I do that very often when you bring home to the listener the truth of the gospel and the effects and the punishment of sin, very often he's under great order to go away.
The Lord, the world... will love its own. And so I think in closing that one of the practical effects of the love of Christ dripping our hearts should be that will walk in holy separateness as far as this world is concerned with regard to its pleasures and its fellowships. Then we will be in a better condition and position to go into the world to carry out the Lord's commission. Go into all the world. and preach the gospel. But I'm a firm believer of this truth, dear friends, that the power of our witness will be according to the measure of our separatedness unto the Lord and from the world.
If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Whosoever shall be a friend of the world, is constituted the enemy of God. Whilst we rejoice in these marvelous truths in connection with the love of God, friends, let us feel our responsibility to go forth and to show that love in a practical way to all around. By this shall all the men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have loved one toward another. Let us recognize as far as the world is concerned our place is just outside.
Therefore let us go forth under him without the camp. Where is he? He's outside, Prince. And we are called upon to go under him who is outside. Bearing his reproach, for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. That verse always impresses me. It's Hebrews thirteen, isn't it? Very easy to remember. And it's a thirteen verse. If I remember right, it has thirteen words in it. And the very central one is H-I-M-T. Yes. May we go forth this morning in rejoicing in the knowledge of the Lord.
May his love warm in our hearts continually. May his glorious person fill the vision. and our heart then will be overflowing with joy and will anticipate the glad day when we will see him face to face. Let us pray. O God, our Father, we do indeed thank thee for thy precious word which unveils to us all these wonderful truths. We thank thee for the light of thy truth. O sin forth thy light and thy truth. Let them lead us, O God, even miss our day in generation.
And grant that our hearts might indeed be warmed increasingly, with our own love and with a sense of our own unworthiness, and with a love for others, for the more we get to know him, so the more we find him true, and the more we long that others might be led to know him too. We ask that I have written on my word, In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.