number 46 number 46 rejoice the
lord is king Lift up your voice, rejoice again,
I say, rejoice. Tell us the Savior reigns, the God of truth and
love. When he had blessed the saints, he took his seat above.
Lift up your heart. Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!
Rejoice! Rejoice! For our time remaining, I want
us to briefly look at verse 16 of chapter 3. So that's the verse
that everybody seems to know, isn't it? For God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. So this
verse speaks of the scope of the love of God and it speaks
of the atoning work of the Son in the redemption of his people
and it clearly identifies and with certainty those who are
the recipients of eternal life. And so for the children of God,
these words are full of comfort and assurance. Nevertheless,
there are those who would give John 3.16 a meaning that God
never intended. Just a few weeks ago, Bethy and
I were at Clamor Markets, and there was a church group there
doing a mission, and I noticed there was a sign they had up
there, and it said, we love him because he first loved us. And
I thought, well, that's great. It's a really good verse. And had they stuck with that
verse, that would have been much better. Because underneath that
verse they wrote, and he loves you too. The conclusion, of course,
is that God loves everybody. 2 Peter 3.16 speaks of those who
would rest the Scriptures, W-R-E-S-T, rest the Scriptures. And the
word means to put on a rack, you know, the racks they used
to use to torture people. To put on a rack and stretch
it, stretch it and distort it. This notion that God loves everybody,
it's truly absurd and it's just remarkable how how much of a
foothold, I suppose, it has made in this world. It's amazing as
well to think that, you know, if faith comes by hearing and
hearing by the Word of God, that God loves everybody, that he
makes sure that his Gospel gets to every person that ever lived,
everybody without exception, but there's multitudes of people
that have gone to their graves without even hearing the Word
of God. And can it be said then that
God loves them? And did he love Ananias and Sapphira,
who dropped dead at the word of the apostle? And did he love
Esau, whom the Lord said he hated? He did use that word, you know.
But I've been sitting in the congregation and there's been
a minister at the front that's addressed that, and he said,
well, that word doesn't really mean hate. It means loved less. So Jacob, I have loved, and Esau,
I loved him too, but I loved him less. They rest the Scriptures. They
stretch the Scriptures. So let me begin by making some
very brief points concerning the love of God from the scriptures.
And the thing I want you to note is that the love of God is always
tied intrinsically to His character. So when we talk of God as being
eternal, God is eternal, God's love is eternal. It is a reflection of his character.
God is love, so too the love of God is eternal. Jeremiah 31
says this, says, Yea, I have loved you with an everlasting
love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. Why did God
love us? Ephesians 1 tells us that God
chose a people before the foundation of the world. That's when he
loved us. He chose a people before the
foundation of the world in love, the text says. God loves his
people eternally. It is an eternal love, without
beginning, without end. And so those who are the objects
of his love are loved. They have been loved in eternity. They have been loved everlastingly.
They are loved now, they'll be loved forevermore, and they always
have been loved. God is sovereign, so too the
love of God is sovereign. His love is not influenced by
anything in the creature. God loves whom he pleases, Jacob
and Esau were no different from one another, but Jacob was the
object of divine love. and it is according to His good
pleasure. The love of God is sovereign.
God is immutable. So too the love of God is immutable,
undeviated. Malachi 3 says, For I am the
Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. There's no variableness in God.
There's no change in Him. There's no variableness or change
in the love of God. God never changes His mind, and
if He did so, it would be no longer God. And so too, the love
of God is unchanging, it's constant, it never wavers. It's not like
human love, it never fails. The objects of God's love will
never cease to remain the objects of His love and care. For I am
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. God is holy. So too the love
of God is holy. God does not overlook sin in
his own people. even in his own people. The soul
that sinneth, it shall die. But God found a way, didn't he?
He found a way by the giving of his Son to punish sin in his
people and remain holy and just and righteous. God is holy. God commendeth his love towards
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the
ungodly. Christ died for us. And finally, the love of God
is distinguishing. It is a distinguishing love.
It distinguishes from all others. And we know this from Ephesians
chapter 5 in that glorious picture of marriage. Christ loved the
church and he gave himself for it. Christ is the husband of
the church. The husband's love for his bride
is a distinguishing love that excludes all others. Could you imagine on the wedding
day, a groom declaring his love to his bride and then he says
in the same breath, well I love all women just the same as you. That's what the God loves everybody
gospel is saying. and in realising the inconsistency
some will say that the love of God is nuanced, that there are
different grades of love, that God loves everybody in some sense. Now can you imagine if Beth asked
me if I loved her and I said, well, in some sense. The fact
is the religion of this world has been telling us a God that
bears no resemblance to the God of the Scriptures. It despises
the God who is sovereign in salvation. It despises the God of election
and predestination, and the God who chooses some and not others. They really do hate it. Men prefer
a God who is much more inclusive and much more loving, a God that
thinks everybody deserves a chance. And so they rest the Scriptures,
don't they? They rest the Scriptures to that end. They distort the
word and without due diligence they recklessly use John 3.16
as an objection. What about John 3.16, they say?
What about John 3.16? As if that settles the matter.
Don't you know that everybody is loved by God? Don't you know
that God loves everybody? It's just no wonder, you know,
that so many people, I suppose, believe it. When you go to the
largest Christian bookstore, you just have to go online and
have a look, you'll just see the merchandise that's available
with this type of idea. God loves you is inscribed across
drink bottles and crucifixes and books and you can even buy
a God loves you children's Bible. Satan knows, doesn't he? I'm
just so thankful that the Lord has given us faithful writers that testify to the truth. And
I'd just like to commend to you Mr Bradbury. He does a good job
in visiting the world passages in scripture, because that's
one of the objections that people use. They say, what about world?
Surely that means everybody without exception. In Isaiah 42, there
are four words. They're a great test for everything,
I believe, in terms of rightly dividing the truth. And those
four words are, He shall not fail. He shall not fail. That's an absolute truth that
you can depend on. Make it the test of all your
controversies. You know, just test it with that.
Is this verse or is this passage, is this message saying or implying
that God or the Lord Jesus Christ or the Spirit fails in any way? God shall not fail. He cannot
fail. And God will not fail to save
the objects of his divine love. If Christ died for everybody,
it makes Christ to be a failure, for not all are saved. That's
a simple logical conclusion. So number one, it's not logical
to say that Christ died for everybody. And number two, it's just not
true. It's not scriptural. That being said, let's look at
verse 16 with an eye to the context and ask the Lord to help us to
see For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have everlasting life. So first of all, notice the word
so. That is a very important word
for us to understand. For God so loved the world. The text doesn't say, for God
loved the world. For God so loved the world. God loved the world
so. God loved the world in this way.
God loved the world in this manner, for God so loved the world. And that world is the world of
His love. The Lord is referring to a particular people, and we
know this from the context, and the key to this context is in
the person whom the Lord Jesus is speaking. So we need to understand
the mindset of Nicodemus and his Jewish brethren. Just turn
to John chapter 11, just for a moment. I just want to look
at a few verses that show this out. The Jews considered themselves
a privileged people in many ways. Privileged to have received the
oracles of God, privileged that God had chosen nation Israel
from among all other nations as his special positions, and
they were the proud descendants of Abraham. and they thought themselves the
sole beneficiaries of the goodness of God. But here's their problem,
and here is the key we are looking for. They had no idea that as
a nation, the Gentiles would be grafted in. And here in John,
the high priest, Caiaphas, prophesies of this truth, and he's not even
aware he's prophesying it. In John 11, verse 49, And one of them named Coethas,
being the high priest that same year, said unto them, You know
nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that
one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish
not. And this spake he not of himself. But being high priest that year,
he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, and not for
that nation only, but that also he should gather together in
one the children of God that were scattered abroad. And we
see it in 1 John 2 too, in speaking of the Lord Jesus. John says,
here's the propitiation for our sins. So that's the Jewish nation. Here's the propitiation for our
sins, yes. And not for ours only, not only
just for the Jews, but also for the sins of the whole world.
That world is the world of His love, whoever they may be, wherever
they may be, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither
bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, they are all
one in Christ Jesus. Just turn to Revelation chapter
5. The problem for Nicodemus was
his ignorance of the scope of God's love, and the Lord needed
to set him straight. And here's the truth, verse 9,
chapter 5, And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy
to take the book, and to open the seals thereof. For thou wast
slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation. And so when the Lord
Jesus was speaking these words to Nicodemus, what was he saying? What was he telling him? He was
telling him nothing less than this, that the Gentiles had been
grafted in. That from among the whole world,
God would gather a people to himself, wherever they may be
found. And that's the extent of God's
love. That's the extent of God's love towards this world. He's
gathering people for himself from among the whole world. For
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. Whosoever. Men love to focus
on that word, don't they? Whosoever. love to insist that
this means everybody without exception. But as we've seen,
the Lord Jesus is still addressing the closed-mindedness of this
Pharisee, of Nicodemus, that redemption is not limited to
the Jews only. And we preach to everybody, don't
we? We preach this Gospel to whoever will hear us. We don't
know who belongs to the Lord, and many will hear this message
and give it no heed, but the Lord makes men to differ. God's
the one who distinguishes one from another. Who are they? Who are they? That's a good question,
isn't it? Well, they're identified in the text. Whosoever believeth. They're the believing ones. They
are the ones who are given faith to the message, and they are
the ones who have an everlasting life. They are the believing
ones. Do you wonder if that's you?
If you find yourself believing the Gospel of God's free grace,
then John 3.16 is a message of comfort and assurance. It speaks
of free pardon, free grace, not of works, lest any man should
boast. Faith is a gift to those he's
loved before time began by faith in his blood, precious blood
of the Son of God. These believing ones have been
redeemed by his blood, actually redeemed, not theoretically redeemed,
actually redeemed. Some say that the blood of Christ
was sufficient for all but effective for few. I don't know if you've
ever heard that. But if Christ died for everybody,
then what does the death of Christ have to do with anybody's salvation?
If Christ died for everybody, what does the death of Christ
have to do with anyone's salvation? If the blood of Christ was shed
for everybody, then what makes the difference? It's not the
blood of Christ that makes the difference. It's the will of
man that makes the difference. If the blood of Christ just makes
salvation possible, And that's all it ever is. It's just possible. It's not actual. A possibility
of salvation, just an offer of salvation. And the blood of Christ
doesn't save anybody. Not only that, if the blood of
Christ was shed for everybody and then Christ has been punished
for the sins of those who have been punished again for the same
thing, that is an unjust God. That is not the God of the Scriptures.
God is just and the justifier of those which believeth in Jesus. The blood of Christ is far too
precious, far too precious to be shed for those who will ultimately
perish. If your sins have been punished
in the Saviour, they are no more. As far as the East is from the
West, so far have He removed our transgressions from us. I
need an atonement that really atones. I need a saviour that
actually obtains my salvation. Hebrews 9 tells us, Neither by
the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered
in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption
for us. He obtained it, and he obtained
it for us. He didn't obtain it for everybody,
He obtained it for us. Who is the us? Christ laid down
His life for the sheep, the church, His people, His bride. The scriptures
say it over and over again and yet this myth of God loves everybody
and Christ died to save everybody continues on. Husbands, love
your wives, even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for
it. The father gave his only begotten
son, but the son gave himself as well, didn't he? He gave himself
willingly and voluntarily. The Lord said in John chapter
10, No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down myself. I have
power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. And
he gave his life for a particular people. God sent not his son into the
world to condemn the world. The world of his love is not
condemned. He sent not his son into the
world to condemn the world. They're the ones he came to save. He didn't come to condemn them,
although condemnation is what they deserve, but that the world through Him
might be saved. Again, are all the world saved? No. And so if Christ was intending
to save everybody, what does that imply? It implies that He
failed. God gave His only begotten Son.
the offering of himself to the Father as a perfect sacrifice,
accepted, the work of redemption accomplished. And he that believeth
on him is not condemned. Who's the ones that are not condemned? Who are not condemned? The believing
ones are not condemned. May the Lord cause us to simply
believe. Let's pray.