Turn back in your Bibles, if
you would, this morning to that fifth chapter of Romans, Romans
chapter 5. The title of this message today
is, Divine Love Poured Forth. The Apostle John is led in 1
John chapter 3, in that first verse, to state something of
the amazing grace and love of God. He says, Behold, what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called
the sons of God. That sinners such as we are should
be called the sons of God." The Apostle Paul, writing in this
fifth chapter of Romans, has something to say about the love
of God. And we find in these verses and
in other verses that the love of God, though very much talked
about in our day, cannot be known or experienced or appreciated
apart from the Holy Spirit." If you look down at that fifth
verse, he says, "...and hope." What is hope? Well, it's not
as men view hope in our day, which is little more than a wish
of the unexpected, Hope is a genuine Spirit-wrought anticipation and
expectation for that which God has promised in Christ. The Apostle calls it in another
place, the good hope of grace. And he refers to the Lord Jesus
as Christ in us, the hope of glory. So he says, "...and hope
maketh not ashamed." In other words, those who have this hope,
they'll never be disappointed. He says, "...because the love
of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which
is given unto us." The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts
by the Spirit of God. And that word, or those words,
shed abroad, literally means something like this, poured forth. Or as one defined it, it has
gushed out. And it has gushed out in our
hearts those who are born of the Spirit of God. I read that 133rd Psalm, because he gives
us in that psalm a picture of the anointing of a priest such
as Aaron, and he says that it is like that oil of anointing
that was poured forth on Aaron's head. I've heard people talk
about anointing with oil. I pretty much can guarantee that
it was not like that anointing. Because they anointed that prophet
and priest and king under that Old Testament economy with a
hen of oil, And that hen of oil amounted to something a little
over seven pints of oil. They poured it over their heads,
and as it describes it there, that anointing oil flowed over
their hair, their shoulders, all the way down to their feet,
covering them. And that seems to be the picture
that we find in this scripture concerning the love of God which
is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. And it is not
simply a feeling or is some kind of a mystical experience that
he's talking about. He's talking about the Spirit
of God taking the things of His Word concerning Christ and showing
them, revealing them to us. Hold your place and look back
in John's Gospel in the 16th chapter and hear the words of
Christ when he says in verse 13 of John 16 concerning the
Holy Spirit, He says, "...howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth,
is come, He will guide you into all truth, for He shall not speak
of Himself. But whatsoever He shall hear,
that shall He speak, and He will show you things to come." Look
at that next statement. He shall glorify me." Now, I've
tried to tell you what that word glorify means. It does not mean
to make something that which they are not really. It simply
means to make manifest one as they really are. He couldn't
make the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect, eternal Son of God,
He couldn't make Him better. And yet He says, He shall glorify
Me. He will take the Word, and He
will glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show
it unto you. All things that the Father hath
are Mine, therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall
show it unto you." The work of God's Spirit. has to do with
a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ through the gospel in
the hearts and minds of men and women. So where you hear people
talking all the time about the Spirit of God and not about Christ
and Him crucified, then you know that is what Paul called another
spirit. And so he says here that he sheds
the love of God abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. And the glory of that love can
only be seen when we're enabled to see in some degree who God
is, and also at the same time in that light who and what we
are. That's why people in our day
have such a light attitude about the love of God. Because they
really do not know anything about the God of love, that God that
the Apostle says is love, And they certainly do not of themselves
know anything about what they are as sinners. But there's one thing that I'm
absolutely sure of, and that is what Paul in this same book
states so clearly, and that is when he says that the love of
God is in Christ Jesus. the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus. And it is in the light of that
that Paul, in these verses, sets forth things about this love,
and the reason and the cause of God's love is to be found
only in himself. There is no reason. In you, or
in I, or in anybody else, there is no reason in us for God to
love us. So for God to love such as we
are, that reason has to be found in Himself, and simply it just
boils down to this, He loved us because He would. You can look. You can self-examine,
you can rationalize, but it always boils down to this eternal fact. God loved the people in Christ
simply because He would. You remember having children?
When they're small and at your side with a million questions,
you tell them something and there's this constant why, why, why. And there is something that we
cannot ever grasp, especially as it pertains to Almighty God
and any sinner he might love, and that is the why of it. He simply loved the people because
he would. And that love, according to what
we find in this book, and that's the only place we're going to
learn about the love of God, that love is a sovereign love. And that just simply means that
rather than God loving everybody, God loves, as He says, whom He
would. He said, I've loved Jacob. but I've hated Esau." And we
can't get by that. We can't say, well, he just loved
Esau less, or he just simply states that two times in Scripture,
and we can come back with that with what John says in his epistle
that God is love, but that doesn't mean He loves me. We can say
that all we want to. We've got to say that. God is
love. You'll not find anything about
love apart from God Himself. But simply the fact that God
is love, that doesn't mean He loves you. And that doesn't alter
the fact that we find in Scripture that He describes and speaks
of some as being those that He hates. He hates all workers of
iniquity. He hates these He describes in
Proverbs, that so discord among the brethren and such as that.
He says He hates them. So what we need to do is find
from His Word how His love really is, and what we find is in Jeremiah
31, we find out that He says it is an everlasting love. Whoever it is that God Almighty
loves, it is because He has loved them from old eternity. As a matter of fact, it might
surprise you. to go back in all of Scripture
and see if you can find where any prophet or any apostle or
the Lord Jesus Christ Himself ever said to anybody, God loves
you. Because what you'll find out
is that in Scripture, most in every case, He speaks of having
loved us. He loved his people. He loves them with an everlasting
love. And he says to those he loved
there in the church at Thessalonica, Paul says, as he describes them,
as brethren beloved of the Lord. Here is a people who, he says,
by the Spirit of God, they're beloved of the Lord. And being
beloved of the Lord, out of that love, he had from the beginning
chosen them to salvation. You see, we don't do things to
make God love us. God does things for us and to
us because He already loved us in Christ before the world began. But the love of God, the love
of God is most clearly and plainly exhibited in the gift of and
the death of His Son for His people. Look down at that 8th
verse. He says, but God commended His
love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. Now this is an amazing thing
if we're ever enabled to learn it. especially those of us who
now live some 2,000 plus years after the Lord Jesus Christ died. Because he says here that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. What does that mean,
preacher? That means that you and I were
sinners before we were ever born. When Jesus Christ died on the
cross 2,000 plus years ago, we were sinners at that time. And we are sinners because we
fell in Adam in the very beginning in our head and representative
so that it says, in Adam all died. We were all in our father
Adam and we died, and it says, and the many the many became
sinners." You say, I don't understand that. Well, you see, God dealt
with us in Adam. He dealt with our representative,
Adam, that he might deal with his people in another representative,
the Lord Jesus Christ. In Adam, all die, but those in
Christ, are made alive. And when you stop and think about
it, how many people try to talk about the love of God and at
the same time bypass any reference concerning His death, the death
of God's Son? Turn over to 1 John chapter 4. Now, I don't think I could possibly
explain this any better, make it any more clear than what John
the Apostle has said here in 1 John chapter 4 and verse 9. And he makes this statement immediately
after he's made another statement that says, God is love. Now, you can just take that and
go home with it and just try to live in the peace of that
if you want to, but all that means is we don't know God. You
see, it always boils down to this. How can this thrice holy
and just God love us? Verse 9, "...in this was manifested."
What does that mean? That means it already was. It's
just revealed. It's just made known. That's
an important word all throughout the New Testament. You see, everything
in God's love and purpose of grace in Christ to his people,
it already was. And when Christ came, it's made
manifest. In this was manifested the love
of God toward us because that God sent his only begotten Son
into the world that we might live through him. What does that
mean? That means we're dead in ourselves. Now, notice verse 10. Herein
is love. Now, you don't have to be a rocket
scientist to find out what the love of God is in this verse. Herein is love. Not that we loved God. Though God brings His people
to love Him, Our love for Him could never have been the cause
of His love for us. Not that we love God, but that
He loved us and sent His Son. Now, the translators added that
to be, as they often do sometimes. "...and sent his Son the propitiation
for our sins. He, as the surety of his people,
always has been the propitiation for their sins, always has been
the one, the sacrifice through which any wrath and animosity
from God as a holy God has been turned away from them. And then
you look down at verse 19. We love Him because He first
loved us. He first loved us. Now, Paul and John, as well as
every other prophet and every other apostle, have joined inseparably
the love of God to the death of Jesus Christ. And yet, when
men bypass the death of Christ, they surely cannot ever speak
of the love of God. But when you think about it,
how many more speak of His love and His death and reduce the
love of God to nothing because of what they say about His death? You think about this. If the
death of Christ, as a demonstration of the love of God, if that did
not actually accomplish something for us, if it did not save us
from our sin, if it did not do for us that which we need most,
what good is the love of God? If here's a man over here, and
a woman over here, and they're told that God loves them, that
He loves everybody. If they're told that Christ died
for them, that He died for everybody, and yet they, as Scriptures tell
us, the most part of all humanity will perish in their sins, what
good did it do for God to love them? It did no good at all. And what that does is it so diminishes
and degrades the love of God as it is in Christ Jesus, and
it winds up being utter blasphemy. You see, the love of God in Christ
is seen in its true light when we consider those He loved and
died for. Now, if you look back in Romans
chapter 1 at that 7th verse, when Paul is giving the greeting
to those that he writes this epistle to, in that 7th verse,
he says, "...to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called
saints." What does that mean? Saints. The Roman church is trying
to make a saint out of a recent pope, so they say. But that word saint simply means
separated one. One separated by God unto themselves. It means one who is made holy
before God, set apart unto His use, sanctified once. He said they're loved of God.
But though they're loved of God, how does He describe these that
He loves as they are in themselves? Well, you look down at verse
6 in Romans 5. He says, they are without strength. The very first thing that describes
these that God demonstrates and pours forth His love on, they
are in themselves without strength. Here are preachers standing up
telling, people in the pew to do this and to do that, and God
will bless them, do this thing and the other thing, all these
things, when he says, they're without strength. They're helpless. They're impotent. no ability
to please God, no ability to save themselves, no ability to
satisfy divine justice, having nothing to offer to God. They
are without strength. Then he describes them in that
same verse, in verse 6, as the ungodly, the ungodly, the irreverent,
the God-condemning, That's what we are by nature, enmity. Then he says in verse 8, "...but
God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet
sinners, born in sin, shaped in iniquity, natured by sin,
and absolutely sinning, enmity toward God." And then look in
verse 10, he says, "...for if when we were yet enemies, enemies. It's a scary thing if we ever
find ourselves to be the enemies of God. Fly in His face, deny
His word, rebel against His high and holy throne. Enemies. But thank God that His love,
as I said, is more than just a silly emotion. It's more than
just general benevolence. It's particular and it's active. Someone told me one time I needed
to speak more about the universal love of God. You showed me that. In this book, the universal love
of God, and I'll surely start talking about it. But there's
no way God's love can be universal. The love of God, which he says
is in Christ Jesus, is as particular as it gets. As a matter of fact,
Paul, writing to the church at Ephesus, he said, husbands, Love
your wives even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for
it." You think he's teaching universal love or free love as
they used to call it in the 60s? Is that what he's talking about
there? No, he's talking about a particular love, a love of
committal. Love your wife even in the same
manner that Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. Love her sacrificially. Love
her particularly. Love her and protect her. You see, verse 8 says, "...but
God commendeth his love toward us." God commendeth. His love toward us. You see,
His love is always in action toward His people. That word,
commendeth, means to prove. He proved His love. He established
His love. He confirmed it. He manifests
it. He gave a proof of it. He demonstrated
His love. And it's a whole lot different
from man's love. Because he says in verse 7, "...for
scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure
for a good man some would even dare to die." And here is God
commending His love to a bunch of rebel, worthless, vile sinners. That's it. And He says this is
why the love of God has to come through Christ crucified. Look
down at that ninth verse. The love of God is through the
justifying blood of Jesus Christ by which we're saved. He says
much more then, being now justified. Do you know what that word means? It means to be declared righteous
by God. Not for you simply to be righteous
in yourself, but it means that you are declared righteous by
God as the just God. You are declared not guilty on
the basis of Jesus Christ and what He did. in the shedding
of His blood, much more than being now justified by His blood."
You ought to just look up that word, justified. It says we're
justified by His grace, and here it says we're justified by His
blood. What is that? That means His
life poured out on that cross through that act. of Him laying
down His life in our place as the substitute for His people. On that basis, and only that
basis, God counts every one of these Christ died for as righteous
in His sight, not guilty in His sight. much more than being now
justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him."
The demonstration of God's love to us was in Christ's death,
through which He says we shall be saved from wrath through Him. How can we be saved from wrath?
Because He bore that wrath on the cross. You think about this
Lord of glory hanging on that cross. He doesn't look any different
from any other Jew of his day. He has no form or comeliness
that we should desire. He's like a root out of a dry
ground. But he's hanging there, representing
his people, this people that God loved with an everlasting
life. And the Lord has imputed to him,
charged to his account, liability of all their sins, all the sins
of all his people of all time that says they were made to meet
on his head. He was burying them in his own
body on the tree. And what does he say? He says,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He didn't say that
out of any weakness. He said that so that we would
hear it and would know that everyone that he was dying for, they would
never be forsaken of God because he had borne that hanging there
on that cross. Verse 10, he says, for if, When
we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Much more being reconciled, we
shall be saved by His life." I want you to think about this. Because the apostle is describing
the Lord's people as they are in themselves, enemies." He talks about our
being enemies, and he talks about reconciliation. Old John Gill
made a wonderful observation on this. He said, reconciliation
implies a former state of friendship, a breach of that friendship,
and a making of it up again, which no way contradicts the
everlasting and unchangeable love of God to His people. For this is not a reconciliation
of God to them, but of them to God." They're His children. They've been His people, His
elect, His beloved. Long before the world ever was,
certainly long before we fell in Adam, long before they were
born into this earth, they were in a relationship with the living
God, chosen in Christ, loved with an everlasting love, counted
as His family and His friends, His children, His beloved. So how are they enemies? He was
never an enemy to them, because He always viewed them in Christ. Do you understand that? That's
how He loved them before the world began. He never viewed
them as His enemies. He viewed them as His friends,
because Christ talks about laying down His life for His friends. But every one of them, not only
in Adam, but in themselves, they acted as enemies to Him. They made Him to be their enemy,
and that's why they had to be reconciled to God. You see, God is unchanging. He never changes. You've got
to think about that. That's something I always drop
back to, the immutability of God. is what a preacher is saying,
is what a doctrine that's being taught, is what I'm looking at
and thinking I believe. Does that in any way alter God? Did He have to change to be better? Did He have to change to do this?
No, He said, I'm the same yesterday, today, and forever, and for that
reason ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Turn over to 2 Corinthians
for just a moment. I want you to look at 2 Corinthians,
that fifth chapter. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. You see,
God's never changed in His love toward us, and we're the ones
who had to be reconciled to Him, and we were unable and unwilling
to do this, and that's why He did it. You
see, we were reconciled. according to what Paul says.
For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the
death of His Son. Look in 2 Corinthians 5 now at
that 18th verse. And all things are of God. who hath reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation
to wit." This is the gospel of reconciliation. What was it? What is it? that God was in Christ
reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation."
What is Christ doing hanging on that cross? He's reconciling
his people to God. When he died on that cross, he
reconciled us to God. And there is nothing left to
be done by us in order to make that reconciliation sure or better
or whatever it is. He was in Christ reconciling
us unto himself through the death of his Son. Well, why are all
these preachers saying, Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ
as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's
stead, be ye reconciled to God." Will I not be reconciled unto
God until I do something to be reconciled to God? Is that what
he's talking about there? No. Because he's already said,
Goodness, he already said that he was in Christ reconciling
us unto his self. You see, what's taking place
here is Paul is writing to these Corinthian believers, in the
light of their knowledge of Him and the other preachers of the
gospel being persecuted, and also them being persecuted and
afflicted because of their identifying with Him. But what he's saying
is, since God was in Christ and has reconciled us to Himself,
We're to be reconciled to His providence, whatever it is He
brings, whatever it is we suffer for His namesake. We're already
reconciled to God. And if we're reconciled to God
in Christ, all this other stuff doesn't matter. Just be reconciled
to whatever He sends in your life. We don't do anything to
make better the work of Christ. You see, only friends have to
be reconciled. Why does He call us enemies?
Well, you go to Colossians 1 and read that 20th and 21st verse
when you get home, and you'll find out that Paul says, we were
enemies in our minds by wicked works. What is that? That means in our minds we sought
for so long to stand before God and to offer up to Him what Paul
called dead works, wicked works. What kind of work is that? Any
work we do in order to be saved. Any work we do and hold it up
to God as some basis for our justification, our salvation. We work to the glory of Christ
because He saved us, not in order to be saved. Because He gave
us the free gift of eternal salvation, not to gain any part of it. And
that's why he gets all the glory. He gets all the glory. And so
Paul says in that fifth chapter of Romans, and I love this especially,
he said, we shall be saved from wrath through him. You lay down on the bed at night
and fear death and eternity, fear the wrath of God, you know
you're a sinner. You know you've broken His law.
You know you have violated His every command. You know that
in yourself you're everything that He hates and despises as
sin. There's only one way that a sinner
is saved from that wrath, and that's through Him that bore
it on the cross. I'm going to be saved from wrath.
I'd be the first one to say to you, I deserve it of myself. I just absolutely, you think
I'm bad, I'm worse. I'm going to be saved from wrath.
And then look what he says, verse 11, I got to hush. And not only
so, there's more to this than just being saved from wrath,
Not only so, but we also joy in God. How can a sinner joy
in this immaculately perfect, holy, inflexibly just God? How can we joy in God? I have
fellowship with Him. How? In His Son, in the light
of His gospel. In the light of Christ crucified,
in the light of love demonstrated in Him, we joy, we exult in God. How? Through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom we have now received. And I don't know why the translators
of King James did this. He says, the atonement. The word
is actually reconciliation. But maybe it's a good thing.
I'd say it's a good thing if God Why? Because it always reminds
us that reconciliation to God is inseparably joined to the
atoning blood and work of Christ. We joy in God through Christ
crucified. He reconciled us to Himself through
the death of His Son, and He revealed it to us. He shed His
love abroad in our hearts by His Spirit, enabling us to see
His love in that crucified Savior. What is it the hymn writer says?
And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? Died He for me who caused His
pain? For me, who Him to death pursued,
amazing love! How can it be that Thou, my God,
shouldst die for me?" That's divine love, as Paul says, poured
forth, bestowed upon us. shed abroad in our heart. That's
divine love gushing out of that eternal fountain, which is Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. The Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. Ah, to know something about the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Because Paul said just
prior to that, Nothing, nothing, nothing shall be able to separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Father, this day we give you
thanks that you in mercy made yourself to be our God and our
Savior. that you did take on human flesh
in the demonstration of that love in order to save us from
our sins by being that one sacrifice for sins forever. We do thank
you for being our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who loved us
and gave yourself for us. We pray that we might love you
more serve you more faithfully, live more appreciatively of that
love that's in Christ. To you be glory and honor and
power and dominion forever and ever. Amen.