God's profound love for the world is the central theme, emphasizing that this love is demonstrated through the ultimate sacrifice of His Son. The sermon explores the immensity of God's love, using John 3:16 as its primary text, and contrasts it with the conditional or absent love found in other worldviews. It highlights that God's love is not based on human merit but is a free gift, extended to all people regardless of their background or actions. The core lesson is that this divine love is the foundation of the Christian faith, offering salvation and everlasting life to all who believe.
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I want to read, if I may please, those lovely verses in one Corinthians chapter thirty. One Corinthians chapter thirty. You know, I almost feel like asking you to quote it with me. There it is, one Corinthians thirty. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not loved, I am become as a sounding brass and a tinkling And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.
And though I destroy all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profitously nothing. For? Love suffers long and is kind. Love envious not. Love vaunteth not itself. It's not her thought. Does not behave itself unseemly. Seeketh not her own. It's not easily provoked. Seeketh no evil. Rejoice us not in iniquity, but rejoice us in the truth.
beareth all things, believeeth all things, hopeeth all things, endureeth all things, love never faileth. But whether there be prophecies, they shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child.
I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass darkly. But then, face to face. Now I know in part. But then shall I know, even as also I am known. And now abide us. Faith, hope, love, thee through. And the greatest of these is love. May the Lord just bless us. The reading of his own precious word tonight.
Amen. love towards us. We're not unmindful that we owe everything to thee. There's a sense in which we have never met thee, we would have never met one another. But oh, we praise thee so much that having met thee, thou hast drawn us in those great cords of blood. And we bless thee for Christian fellowship. We thank thee for Christian service. We rejoice in Christian worship. And we ask tonight, as we open my word and hear thee speak to us again, that those that know not the Lord of Saviour may come to know it this night for Jesus' sake.
Amen. I've been much in thought and prayer about the feast. I've had rather a busy day, it seems to me. I've been making recordings all day long. Not quite that, but that's how it seems. And yet we come this evening, and as I came, I was just asking that God would seal in my own heart what in the early hours of this morning I felt he would have me talk about. And I want just for the few moments for the mind to talk with you of the most loved text in the Bible, the only text you could associate with when Corinthians thirty, I want to talk with you about John three and sixty.
I want to remind you that it's still true, sir. It's still true. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. I've been trying to remember some of the outlines that over the course of years I must have used concerning this task and I find that I would need two or three pages of a notebook to scribble them down sometimes I look at this text and I dare to say about it here is the text that tells me of the greatest gift he gave his only begotten son here is the text that tells me of the greatest gold shall not perish here is the text that tells me of the greatest glory, but have everlasting life.
I sometimes say here's the text that tells me of a fact that God so loved the world. It tells me of an act. He gained his son. It tells me of a fact that whosoever believeth in him should not perish. Here's a text that takes me away into the truth of the epistle to the Ephesians. And I see the breadth of his love, for he loved the world. And I see the length of his love. He gained his son. And I see the depth of his love that whosoever. And I see the height of his love everlasting life. Here's the depth. Oh, there's no end to it, isn't there?
There's no end to it. And the problem is then, that when you've said all the outlines that you can think of, you still come back to this truth that God loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that if any man will trust in him, they'll not perish but have everlasting life. There's no way, really, You can say it differently. And so this evening. I want to talk, if I may, about this lovely text in a way that I'm sure every preacher who's ever preached on it has looked at it.
Now, I claim no originality for this outline. If you've got any of those books on your bookshelf, you know, puffy points of pungent creatures, or something like that, you'll find it there. It's not mine, and yet it is mine, because I've made it mine. I want to talk to you about the greatest person for God. For God, name the people that have lived. Name the folk that they bowed and worshipped. Then write over them all. God, over all, bless me forever.
I want to talk to you about the greatest person. I want to talk to you about the greatest place. He loved the world. I can understand it if it said God loved the heavens. I could understand it if God said he loved his creation, but that he loved this world, this world. I want to talk to you not only about the greatest person who loves the greatest place. I want to talk to you about the greatest passion he gave his only begotten son. Could anything be greater than that person?
anything more wonderful than that, he gave his only begotten son for the greatest of purpose that we should not perish but have everlasting life. Oh, it's a great thing. The greatest purpose for God. And there for a moment we must stop. Of course, we will stop forever. if we wait to fully comprehend God. But you would not expect fully to comprehend God, would you? Because if you could fully comprehend God, you know what that means.
It means that God is the sight of your mind. I don't believe any one of us here would like to think that our mind was as big as that. I know mine, though. If I could fully comprehend God, then God would be the size of my intellect. And I do assure you, if he is to be the Savior of the world, he needs to have a bigger intellect than mine. So if you find yourself tonight saying, I don't fully understand God, you just bow your head and say, thank you, Lord, thank you.
You're so much bigger than me. I must stop for a moment and talk about God. Because strange as it may seem, I am continually asked, and quite often by young folks, with almost a high school education. Mr. Ford, why do you believe in God? Why do you believe in God? Now I borrow the words about it. You know it as well as I do. Almost every other year there appears in your reader's digest an article. An article that is continually being asked for.
Folks are continually writing in, so says the editors of the reader's digest, that this article may be reprinted, and about every two years they reprint it. You know what it is, don't you? Seven reasons why a scientist believes in God. Now let me explain something to you right now, just in case you didn't know. I am not a scientist. Understand that. Just in case you didn't know. But that article always thrills me. It had its foundation with Professor Colson, the Rice Board Professor of Mathematics, in the University of Oxford in my country.
You will remember that they start off by saying that they believe in God. The mathematician, Professor Colson, says, I believe in God because as a mathematician, I cannot do anything but. He asks all of us to do a little arithmetic, if that's the word for it. He says, I want you to take ten ping-pong balls. Is that what you call them over here? Take five. He says, I want you to number the ping pong balls one to ten, and then put them in your pocket. I want you to shake your pocket up and put your hand in your pocket and take one out.
The chance that you will take out the ping pong ball with number one on it is one in ten. I say that simple. I mean, it's one in ten. Put the ping pong ball back and shake your pocket again. The chance you will take out number two is not one in ten, it's one in a hundred. Put it back in your pocket. Shake it again. The chance you will take number three out is not one in ten or one in a hundred, it's one in a thousand. I mean, that's simple mathematics. I mean, it's only a lot of naught, that's all it is. Put it back in your pocket and shake it out.
The chance that you will take those ping pong balls from one to ten out of your pocket is one in ten thousand million. Now that's ten ping pong balls. One in ten thousand million. If you don't believe that, just go home and work it out. Very simple. It's only ten figures, ten ping pong balls. He says, to get ten things in order, the chance is one in ten thousand million. Now let me leave Professor Colton for a moment, because I'm going to do just a little advertising, a little bit of salesmanship for my good friend Mr.
Ruth. He has amongst his massive collection of tapes, a number of so he tells me during the past week, a number of tapes of Dr. Walter Wilson of Kansas City. Is that right, Mr. Lewis? Thank you, sir. Dr. Wilson, in one of his wonderful little booklets that's published by Moody Press, makes some wonderful statements that thrill my heart. Statements which you all appreciate. He dares to say in his proof to God, is it not interesting that God puts everything in order? Go down to the seashore.
There rolls into the shore every minute, twenty-six ways. Not twenty-seven, not twenty-eight, not thirty, not eighteen. And it doesn't matter whether there's blowing a hurricane or whether it's so calm, you could sail a toy ship on it. There comes into the seashore every moment. You can get your watch for it. Twenty-six ways. Please. To get ten things in order, one, ten thousand millions. How many millions of ways have there been that have rolled in? All in all.
I don't know if I'm going to court the Australian America, because as I pointed out to you tomorrow, we in England, we're scriptural. We speak about a corn of wheat. Not, you know, a corn, a wheat. I know something about corn in my country. And, of course, that's what I'm talking about. Have you ever stopped to think for one moment that of the billions and billions and billions and billions of ears of corn there be? The prairies of Canada and tangerous. The little fields of my land, there's never been an ear of corn unless it had an even number of grapes.
You look at it and it hasn't an even number of grains, you'll see mechanical or bugged at it. You like bananas, don't you? I do, anyway. You see a stem of bananas. The first circle of the stem of bananas is even number. Second uneven, next even, uneven, even, uneven. I don't care what variety you have. Have you ever thought about the hatching of eggs? Potato box. Seven days. Chicken. How many days for chicken date, sir? I wasn't asking you, sir.
I was asking my friend here. Listen, I'm going to speak at school tomorrow. I hope they don't shout out like that. But he had it right. Twenty-one. How many duck eggs? Very good. Do you know, I thought he was a sign writer. He's not. He's a farmer. Have you ever stopped to think that every hatching of eggs has been seven days? Just happened? I mean, please, please, to get ten cities in order, one, ten thousands.
Let me tell you what I told you the last time I was with you. I'd rather believe the miraculous than the ridiculous. But behind all that's happening in this scene, there's a God who controls things are working in perfect harmony. This old world of ours, in the orbit in which it goes round the sun, if it was a hundred miles nearer the sun, I mean, you'll be grumbling because it's been ninety degrees. I tell you something, if it was a hundred miles nearer the sun, you wouldn't have time to grumble for you to all be finer.
And if it was a hundred miles further away, you'd all be frozen. I don't know whether you want to join Colonel, whatever his name is, with his chicken, or whether you want to go to barge I frozen food. But I want to remind you of this, my friend, that I've got a God that keeps things in order. He keeps things. You ask me, do I believe in God? I can't do anything but believe in God. And yet the wonder is this, that my Bible says that that God, that God of order, That God of power.
That God that upholds all things by the words of his power. That God loves. For God. You know one of the things that I've noticed as I've traveled from country to country. And there's a sense in which my dear friend Mr. Manick ought to be up here. But if there's one thing I've noticed when I go to countries where the Christian faith is written there that they are people who worship gods, that their gods are corrupt gods and palace gods. Their gods are gods that have no expression of love at all.
I remember some years ago when first I was in Malaysia, if there was one thing I couldn't understand as I walked through the streets of Kuala Lumpur, It was the way that the people dealt with their beasts of birth. I find this exactly the same when I go to space. I find it extremely difficult to see how they deal with their beasts of birth. And almost the first week I was there, as I saw them placed upon their little asses, Loads that no little ass could really bear, and not only place it on them, but if the beat wouldn't move, just put it with sticks and beat it, and no one would say a word.
And when I spoke to one of the brethren, I said, I had a job, not just let's go over and deal with the man. He said, Dan, would you hear me? Do you remember this? That he passed in their worship of God. Most of them are foolish of you, Lord. They believe in reincarnation. They believe that a man, when he dies, if he's lived a good life, he will come back into this scene. Maybe he is a more insulting person than he was before. If he's lived a bad life, he'll come back as an animal. Or he might even, if he's taken a wicked life, come back as some sort of insect.
And when they deal roughly... With their peace of burden, what they're doing is this. We're punishing someone who lived here years ago. Who are they to punish them? I'm glad I've had a son of God right now. My God's not corrupt. My God's not callous. My God loves the world. For God so... love and the greatest person love the greatest place I'm glad of that you see when I think of God and I remember that he's all wise when I remember that the scripture tells me he's a consuming fire he's a creating force that it dares to tell me that he's a compassionate father and then I remember he so loved the world that he gave.
What can I say? I am glad the message of the Christian faith, are you listening please? I am glad that the message of the Christian faith does not begin with logic. It begins with love. I am glad that the Christian faith does not start with the mind. It starts with the heart. And God all love this world. And what a world. Tropes, not a world of trees, not a world of valleys and hills, not a world of sea and sand, but a world of men and women.
He created that world, but he doesn't love it. He created it. The world that God loves is a world of men and women like you and men. All the wonder of it all. All the wonderful And as I open my Bible, I get amazed. I sometimes say, love the world because he loved my home city. Oh, please, not that I live in a city. You know, I live in one of those little places. If you rode a bike and you rode through it and halfway through got a fly in your eye, you'd be out of the place before you knew you'd been there. You know. But may I use the word? Love my home city? Oh, yes, he loved that.
My home county? Yes, he loves that. My home country, praise God, he loves that. Does he love the Anglo-Saxons? Don't want to give you a history lesson, but this text was written before there were any Anglo-Saxons. So he loves that. The more I look at my Bible and the more I think of this world, I have to say, does he love the Jews? Yes, and the Germans as well. Oh, yes. He loves the world. The Swedes, oh, praise God, he doubts. And the Swedes? Yes, thank God. I say, I say, does he love the American?
I am the Arab too. He loves them, he loves the world. The Danes and the Dutch, the Finnish and the Fijian. He loves the world. And as I open my Bible, I'm utterly amazed. You know, I'm told that he loves even those old Amalekites and Jebusites and Hittites and Midianites. And if you like that, you more, I've thrown them in as well. For he loves all that. And dare I quote it, sir? I won't say it to you, but dare I quote it. your black or if your white or if your pattern is God loves you.
If you're short, if you're tall, if you're in between, God loves you. He loves you when you're happy. He loves you when you're fine. He loves you when you're feeling good. He loves you when you're back. No matter what you look like, oh praise God for that. No matter what you see, God loves you. God so loves the world. This civilized world. This savage world. This cultured world. This illiterate world. God so loves the world. Oh, my friend, there's coming a day when the cry will go out.
And from this scene and from the sea, the small and the great will stand before him. But he loves them. The small and the great. I say, the sand and the sinful. He loves the world. The straightest. And the sorrowful. He loves the world. So that means, please, would you grant this? That means there's not a man or a woman in your service, but God loves you. You might not appreciate that love. You might not really have that love.
But you've heard me say a dozen times that the rich and the rich, the poor and the forgotten, the humble and the holy, the Lord is so loved. But it's the greatest passion. Love the greatest place. He loves it with the greatest passion. He so loved the world that he gave his only forgotten son. Down from his glory. Ever-living story, my Lord and Savior came. And Jesus was what he said.
As I watch him as he comes down from glory to earth. I have to say, God loves his soul out of God. Love the world and gave. Of course, God's love always means that he gave. You've noticed that, haven't you? You learned to be in Sunday school as verses to be committed to memory, and you've never forgotten them, have you? God so loved the world that he gave. Christ loved the church, and he gave. When Paul reaches the dizzy height of Christian experience, he cries, He loved himself, and he gave. He loved me, and he gave.
Yes, God's love is always seen in what he did. Does your love show like them? Can it be said of you? Senator, just as it was said of the church at Corinth? They gave first themselves to the Lord. Well, he loved that he gave his only begotten son. And when I think of a Savior who stooped to serve and to say, I love those words of Matthew twenty and twenty-eight, don't you? Oh, I love the words of Matthew twenty-eight and twenty.
But I love the words of Matthew twenty. and twenty-eight, because they perceive the other word. Is it grand to know that he came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many? That's the message of the Christian faith. If I was to say, Amen! I couldn't put it any way. For this blessed son of man, this glorious son of God, this majestic God the Father, came not to be ministered under, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.
No wonder I said he stooped to serve, died to when I look at the cross and I see him there dying for me I can only say what I said years ago when as a young man I took Christ as my Savior I can only say if it's true if it's true that God had one son and he gave him for me then the only thing I can do as a man He said, trust him, please believe that.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. I like that word, don't you? I like that. C.S. Lewis sums it up very nicely, doesn't he? Some of you know it. He says his only begotten son. Begotten son. He says that a bird makes the nest. He forgets an egg. A man makes the house. He forgets the sun. And the very use in the normal English of the word began is simply this.
The that which is forgotten is of the same nature as that which forgets it. You can make a nest, but it's not the same substance as the bird that makes it. You can make a house, but it's not the same substance as the man who makes it. But you can't forget a son unless he's the same substance as you. My blessed God sent his son into the world. He's only the same substance as he has only forgotten. But if the greatest person loved the greatest place with the greatest passion, he loved it for the greatest purpose, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish.
Last evening we were talking a little, weren't we? As we looked at the vast subject of God's hell, and I only touched the edge of it, and that's all I wanted. didn't want to go any further. I had a job to sweep last night. I spent too many hours in the day thinking about it, and I don't like thinking about it. I hope you know and hope you love, and they're bound there. They've not trusted Christ. But isn't it wonderful? But if we'll trust in him, we'll not perish. Lovely.
Let me just say what I say to children when I talk about this house. You know what it means. I say to the boys and girls to perish, don't you? Oh, I don't talk to them about that. Oh, of course I wouldn't. But I look at them and say, you know what it means to perish. I ask the boys and girls how many of them have a bite. Oh, there's a crowd of youngsters have a bite. And I take them at the end of the year four and you put them in one down the road. And you're not lying. And the tire is not written. You say, have you got a puncture? No, he says, I haven't got a puncture.
He's perished. No, it doesn't mean the tire is not there, doesn't he? For he bids he's a grave. No earth he is. He perished. He used it in its lowest form. That means that we call our height to perish in the foes of being, my word. But he used it on its lowest terms. It is no earth he is. It is wonderful that we need not be. No earth he is. that God loves her, but Christ doesn't work.
And it will for me. So you'll see all of our energy and God. We'll be talking about that. And ha! Ha! This is everlasting life. I don't want to go into a theological discourse to discuss with you whether there's any difference between everlasting life and eternal life. I'll let theologians argue about that. I'll just enjoy it. That's what I do. I only know this, that he's promised us both everlasting life and eternal life.
And if they're not the same thing, well, hallelujah, you can have both. Don't be greedy. It's given to you. You can have it. I only know this. But I thank God when I met Jesus Christ. He gave me both life that is quantity and quality. I did not become less red-blooded when I trusted Christ. The fruit out of living was not taken away from me. But hallelujah. There's a sense in which I became more red-blooded. Suddenly life had a meaning. Suddenly I could look round and say, why, it's all worthwhile.
There is a purpose. There is a pattern. There is a plan. And I know this, as I said the night before last. Hallelujah, there's a place as well. And if you trust Jesus Christ, you can be down there. Everlasting life. Have you gone in? You can have it, you know, but you can only have it on one condition. And that is that you receive it as a gift. God doesn't sell his gift. There is a lovely story. Please, it is told.
And whenever a preacher starts a story like that, you have a right to say, I wonder whether it's true. No, it's told. I can't really prove it. But it is told, and it's told so frequently in my land, that I've got a feeling it's said. But our monarch, as you know, has a number of places where she lives. There are a number of castles. I mean, they're not satisfied with one of them. Buckingham Palace. I've never been invited to have Peter. Windsor Castle. You go up to Scotland. the more interesting place that I'll tell you a little story about that how she got it Queen Victoria was given her family oh I mean they got all sorts but the story is told that the Prince of Wales the late Prince of Wales you know that fellow who tried to marry a I better say no more but nevertheless that when he was a boy he was down at Windsor And he was walking through the great glass houses they have there, filled with lovely
grapes, beautiful, these black hamburger grapes. Make sure no water them. And as he was walking through the great vine, so he saw a little more. From the very slum area of winter, and winter as slum is, from the very slum area of winter, a little more. seed almost out of his pants, looking desperately there. There inside the great house, he was stretching his hand towards some grapes. The young prince said, and what are you doing?
Oh, of course, I expect he said it correctly, you know. The little boy nearly fainted. And the story came out of there, and it was simply a death, that his mum was very... And he heard someone say, she needs him great. And he didn't have, and they didn't have, money to buy great. So he goes away to what you call, you piggyback. But in my country, it mostly takes the form of a post box, you know. Letter box. You turn it upside down and put your knife in.
And he counted out his pen. And finally had just a few pets. He tinged these grapes as he looked over the wall. And then he went to look for someone that he could buy some grapes. And he didn't see them. So he thought he'd help himself. He should never have done that. But the prince cut off a bunch of grapes. And then another. And then another. And he placed three lovely bunches of hamburger grapes. There in a little box. And he gave it to the boy. And the boy thought he was just the lad that worked there in the greenhouses and knew himself no value of the grace and put his hand in his pocket and took out his few pens and offered them to the prince.
And he said, here's the money for them. The prince had one look at him. And with all the dignity of the man that we thought would be our king, he said, We don't want your money. The king doesn't sell his gifts. You can understand that, can't you understand that the king of kings doesn't sell his gifts? You'll have God's salvation free, or you won't have it at all.
that whosoever believeth in him should not hurt him but have everlasting life. Tonight, sir, madam, that salvation is being offered to you. Will you accept him? Will you trust your life for the Christ who died on Calvary's cross to save you and to prove God's love towards you? in that while you were yet a sinner, he would die. Believe God, not you will. But it means that.
Amen. I would like us to sing that lovely little hymn. I'm not sure of the number. Someone will help me. That lovely little hymn, only a step to Jesus. Then why not take it now? Two-thirty-six. Thank you, sir. Two-hundred-and-thirty-six. Only a step to Jesus. Then why not take it now? Come and thy sin confessing to him. Thou saviour thou. Only a step come. He waits for thee. Come. And thy sin confessing. Thou shalt receive a blessing.
Do not reject the mercy he freely offers you. The first and last verse, please, of two hundred and thirty-six. Only a step to Jesus, then why not take it now? Come the light in confessing to him, the Savior bow. Only a step, only a step, come he waits for thee.
Come a nighting, confessing, thou shalt receive a blessing. Do not reject the mercy he freely offers thee. Only a step to Jesus. Oh, why not come and share? Gladly today, my Savior, I gave myself away. Only a step, only a step.
come, he waits for thee. And the light's in confessing, thou shalt receive a blessing. Do not reject the mercy he freely offers. I wonder if I may say again before I close this prayer. Oh, my friend, the decision's yours. It's not mine. I made my decision forty years ago. Yours.