I want to talk to you a little
more about what we talked about this morning there in John chapter
15 verse 9. As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. That is, abide in that love,
the same love that the Father hath loved me. Abide, continue
in that love. Now I know that a man cannot
do that in himself and I'm not speaking to you as you are in
yourself but I do speak to you as one that's in the Lord Jesus
Christ and in Him we can because we have all power in heaven and
earth in Him and we can attain to this abiding in His love. It's not to stand by the warmth
of the fire of this love and the next day grow cold and indifferent. That's
not the way it is. It's not that the Lord Jesus
loves you one day and then casts you out the next day. That's
not that. You couldn't abide in that love,
but you abide in the same love, this eternal love that hath no
beginning. It has no ending. You're in it. Abide in it. Well, he says, too, in John chapter
17, and in that last verse there of the 17th chapter, verse 25, the Lord Jesus addresses the
Father in heaven in this way. He says, O righteous Father,
O righteous Father. That is highly significant, O
righteous Father. It is not heavenly Father, it
is not dear Father, it is not blessed Father, but it is righteous
Father. Righteous in the sense that God according to his nature, according
to who he is, cannot compromise. He cannot compromise his holiness. He cannot compromise his righteousness. His righteousness must be established. And he calls him, O righteous
Father. The world hath not known thee. The world doesn't know
him. They all know him. He's a stranger. The God of the
Bible is a stranger to the majority of the peoples of this world. of human beings, God's a stranger
to them, they don't know Him. They don't even listen. They don't even avail themselves
to a time and to a place where perchance they might hear something
of Him. They're so distant from Him. The world hath not known thee. They don't know you. But he said,
But I have known thee, and these have known that thou sent me,
these little children, these that you've given me here in
this seventeenth chapter. Hast thou given him power over
all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou
hast given him? They know you. They know you
in me. They know that you sent me. They
know that I am the express image of thy person. They know that
we as humankind were made in your image. They know that in
Adam we fell, but in this Adam we rise again. They know that. And I have declared unto them
thy name. What is his name? His name is
O Righteous Father. He will not compromise his holiness. Justice must be satisfied. Sin must be punished. The law
must be magnified and honored. It must be. God cannot be God
if he compromises and he makes no compromise. Judges of this
world, And even people like you and I, we compromise our principles,
but God does not compromise His. He will not compromise His justice,
His holiness, His Word. And He calls him, O Righteous
Father. I have declared unto them thy name, O Righteous Father,
and will declare it. I have declared it and I will
declare it. I will continue to declare as God gives him opportunity in
the providential mercy of God to stand and speak before the
crowds, the multitudes. He will do what? He will declare
his name, O Righteous Father. And you know, we have said and
the preachers say that we know, they say that the only way that
a man can stand in good stead with God is that he must have
a perfect righteousness. And to have that perfect righteousness
is the righteousness that God provides in his Son who wrought
righteousness for us by honoring and magnifying the law, by his
life, and by satisfying justice. I will declare it. and will declare,
now listen, that the love, that's what we've been talking about,
the love of God in Christ Jesus. You remember that verse, As the
Father hath loved me, to the same measure, to the same length,
depth, height, and so forth. As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you, little children. Continue, abide in this love.
and will declare that the love wherewith thou hast loved me
may be in them, and I in them." That's what he says. Now the
Lord Jesus, the Christ of God, the sent one, the Messiah, the Old Testament. Someone said,
well, there's no Christ in the Old Testament. Why, there is. Moses knew the Christ in the
Old Testament. Abraham knew Him. Noah knew Him. Enoch knew Him. Enoch walked
with Him and was not, for God took Him. It was in the Old Testament. All the offerings and all the
sacrifices were but a shadow of the Lord Jesus Christ who
was to come. Everything in the Old Testament
pointed to His coming, to what He's going to do. And they believed
and trusted in the Messiah. Well, anyhow, the Lord Jesus
Christ, He loves each of His people. He's got a lot of people. He's got people of every tongue,
every kindred, and every nation in the whole of the earth. He's
got some everywhere, probably in every town, every county,
and every state, and every country. He's got some people. There's
lots of them. Not lots of them in light of
the world's population, I don't believe, but he's got lots of
them. And he's got lots of people who
died in infancy, babies who died. quickened and regenerated. So He's got a lot of people.
The Lord Jesus Christ loves each one of His people. All of them. With the same love that He loved
His Son with. Let's try again. The Lord Jesus
Christ loves each one of his people as much as if he had not
one more. That's how much he has, each
one of his people. All of who he is, all the heart
and soul and spirit of the dear, blessed Redeemer goes out to
each one of his people. Big or small, ignorant or learned, each one
of his, all of his heart's love goes forth. You understand that
the sun in the sky, the great sun, shines today on this round
earth and while it pours out its limitless flood of sunshine
or light upon all the inhabitants of this round earth, there may
be one little insignificant violet that grows in some conspicuous
place That one little flower, one little violet bathes in the
sunshine of the sun. And it can say that the sun is
all mine, that one little violet. And there's millions of flowers
upon the face of this earth, all kinds of flowers. in fields and in gardens and
in conspicuous places. Yet this one little old vine
possesses freely all that the sun can give. And so he is to
you and me, each one of us, all his own, his love. That's how great this love is. So we lose nothing by the fact
that He is all and in all to millions of believers upon the
face of the earth at the same time. We have all of Him, all
of His love. You know what I'm talking about. When a father loves his child,
He loves them if he's a good father, if he's a believing father. He loves each of his children
with all of his love. He's not partial in that love. Now here in this 15th chapter
and that 9th verse, There is two personal pronouns. There is I and there is you. Where it says, As the Father
hath loved me, so I love you. I and you. Now you notice what
stands between the two. What is it? Love. Love stands between these two
words. The Lord Jesus Christ himself
delighted in us, even in us, even in us, sinners, poor sinners,
miserable sinners. filthy sinners, dirty sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ delighted
in us, even in us who are not worthy to be named in the same
day with him, not worthy to mouth his name
in ourselves. Here in this verse of Scripture,
It makes us to know just a little of the love of God to us. It makes us to know a little
bit of how He loves us and the durability and the extension
of that love and what that love does for us. He here, our dear
Savior, has paralleled His love to us with the Father's love
to Him. As the Father loved me, so I
love you. Exactly the same. No more, no
less. 16 ounces to the pound. What
kind of love was that? Well, I'll tell you, when we
start talking about the love of God to His people, we're getting
into deep water right now. I'll tell you that. You're wading
in deep water. You're going to get cleaned up
to your neck. It may be over your mouth. You may even drown
in that ocean, that fathomless ocean, that sea of the love of
God Almighty to His children. Each thought concerning the love
of God to His people is like a hole in the middle of the earth
that has no bottom in it. We know that the Father, God
the Father, we know that he loved the Son without beginning. He tells us that. That's written
in his book of books. And if we read this book of books
aright, we'll come to see that he loved his Son without beginning. even from eternity, and we don't
even know what eternity is. We mouth it and can say it real
quick, but we don't know much about it because we can't comprehend
anything that has no beginning in eternity. Listen, in that
time, Listen to me now, in that time before time began, that's
eternity, in that time before time began, His love went forth
towards His people, chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world, set His affections upon us, give us elective grace
in Christ. In that time before time began,
His love went forth and sweetly came home to our hearts, sweetly
opened our understanding. It was not when we began to love
Him. It didn't happen then when we
began to love Him, not even when we began to be. Did the love of our Redeemer
start or begin? It was even from eternity, from
that time when there was no time, before time began. Listen, it is not conceivable. The human mind cannot comprehend. It's not conceivable. that there
ever was a time when God the Father did not love His Son. I'm telling you, that's deep
water, isn't it? Inconceivable! There never was a time when God
did not love His Son with all His love. And neither is it conceivable
to those who believe this book and who read this book right,
that there ever could be a time when the Lord Jesus Christ did
not love his people, inconceivable. Oh, this ocean of love, love,
love. We feel sure that the Father
loves his Son without end, no end to his love. It doesn't go
out to a point and stop. They said that some of them old
explorers, back centuries ago, when others
said, we're going to try to sail around the world, they said,
you'll just get to a certain place and then you'll drop off. You'll just come to an end of
it and you'll just drop off in a nabus of nothing. No end to the love of God, there's
no dropping off with God. There cannot come a time when
the Father will remove his Son from his heart of love, banish
the thought that God who loved his Son with all of his love
before time ever was, that there would come a time when God would
dislodge, would banish, would cast out the Son of his love,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Until that time, until that time
when the Father will remove the Son That's the time He'll remove
us, but that time will never come. We're lodged in the heart
of hearts and it's there for the long haul. It's there forever. When the stars refuse to shine and the sun has got a veil of
blood and the thunder and the lightnings come, he'll still
love us. He is the unchanging. He's the unchanging Jesus. I
am the Lord. I change not. If the Lord changed,
we'd be consumed in his wrath. But he changes not. He changes
not. There cannot come a time when
the Father will banish His Son from His heart and the unchanging
Jesus will never cease to love His blood-bought people, His
redeemed people, those that He sacrificed Himself in their stead
and their place and their room, bought them with the price of
His blood. There will never come a time
when He will cast them out. He said in one place in the Old
Testament in the book of Leviticus, he said, I have graven your names
on the palms of my hands. It says, mountains shall depart
and the hills shall be removed, but my kindness shall not depart
from me, nor will my covenant of peace be removed. That's the
love of God to his people. And I can even go farther than
that. I can make another step farther
than that. He loves us so much that I certainly,
I certainly, I'm lost talking about it. But I know this, that
the Lord Jesus Christ, though this might sound like it's going
too far, But it's the truth. Our dear Savior loves us more
than he loves himself. Now think of that. Because they
said this about him. They said, He saved others, but
he cannot save himself. See what I'm talking about? He
saved others, but he cannot save himself. the great and mighty
love of the Lord Jesus Christ to make him to be a sacrifice,
the sacrifice for his people that he might redeem them from
under the curse of the law. His love, he loves unto the end
with a love that has no end. That's the love of God in Christ
Jesus. This is an ocean of love that
has no shore and it has no bottom. It's a bubbling fountain and
it continues to bubble over and over perpetually, the love of
God towards his people. If you have any doubts here this
evening, You might doubt your love, but listen, don't doubt
his love. His love is unchangeable. As
a matter of fact, change is not in the vocabulary of God, much
less in the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's immutable. He cannot change. He can love
us no more. than what he does and he can
love us no less. He can love us no more and he
can love us no less. I'll tell you this, when that
love is brought sweetly home to a man's self, proud self goes
out when sweet love goes in. and gives all the glory to him
who comes in, the Lord Jesus. A sweet sense of this love brought
home to our heart will do many things for us. It will calm us
in the storms of life. It will enable us to endure to
the end. Did He not say, He that endureth
to the end shall be saved? This is what will cause you and
me to endure to the end. This sweet love shall broaden
our hearts of the Lord Jesus Christ to His people. A sweet sense of this love will
strengthen us to endure to the end. make it to the end. There were some holy women over
there in Scotland, a holy group of women as well as holy men. But these holy women would not
recant of their confession of the Lord Jesus Christ, of who
He was and what He did. And so these that hated our Lord
and hated these holy women of Scotland, they drove stakes in
the sand on the seashore and tied them to the stakes in order
that they would drown by the incoming tide. Now what do you
suppose It was that made them so brave in their confession
and in their loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ. It was nothing
but the sweet sense of His love that was brought home to their
hearts. There was men and women cast into that amphitheater in
Rome. among savage, ravenous lions. And it's never been said by history
or anybody else that these men and women that was cast into
this lion's pit to be ate up. It's never said that they cowered
to these savage beasts. They didn't do it. They held
their ground. Never made a whimper. Never made
a whimper. There was no running, trying
to hide behind one another. They stood their ground. They never asked mercy from that
crowd who stood there with their eyes fixed upon their pain and
their agony and their suffering. They never asked for an ounce
of mercy. What do you suppose made them conduct themselves
in such a manner? the sweet love of God that's
in Christ Jesus the I in the me stands between the I and that's
what will keep us going that'll be what causes us to endure it'll
be the abiding in this love You can't do much. If your definition of the love
of God is He loves you today and casts you off tomorrow, that
ain't no love. That won't help you any. That's
what the Church of Christ people got and that's what the Church
of God people got and that's what the Baptists got and that's
what the Methodists got and the Catholics got and the Mormons
got, but the people of God has got an unquenchable Endless! No bottom to it! Unchanging! Unchanging! Oh, no! The Bible says that Enoch walked
with God for many a year until at last he walked away with God
and went on to be with God. My Beloved is mine! And I'm His. And until the day breaks and
the shadows flee away, my soul will live on His love, and yours
will too. That's all we've got, and that's
all we want. And that'll stay you in good
times, and it'll stay you in hard times. That's the good news,
isn't it? Now, there's no news like that
news. Inconceivable, isn't it? You
can understand why the natural man couldn't believe that. You
can understand why men turn their backs on Him. They don't know
anything about this love. This stand will be dismissed.