or the scripture that I would
bring before you this evening, is found in 1 John chapter 4,
verse 19. 1 John chapter 4, the first epistle
of John, chapter 4, verse 19. We love him because he first
loved us. We love him because he first
loved us. by way of introduction I would
lay a foundation as it were and this is the foundation that man
by nature does not love God. Indeed man in his fallen condition
does not know God and so he cannot love God. How can we love someone
we don't know? Those who are in a state of nature
that is in a state of sin in a fallen unregenerate condition
do not know God and therefore they cannot love God indeed so
far are they from loving God they are actually at enmity against
God they hate God they may not say they hate God they may say
they believe in God but in reality They are haters of God, as Paul
says in Romans, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for
it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Only those who are alive are
capable of loving. Dead man can't love, only living
man can love. And so it is in a spiritual sense.
Only those who are made alive are capable of loving God. Indeed, it is only they who do
truly love God. A spiritually dead sinner can
know nothing and do nothing spiritually. This is declared to us by the
four black nuns. You know the four black nuns
of Holy Scripture? They're there in Romans chapter
3. As it is written, there is none righteous No, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. They are all gone out of the
way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good. No, not one. Now this is, as
I say, a foundation Of the five points of Calvinism, the doctrine
of total depravity is the first of those five points. And it
is the foundation of all the other points. All the other four
points, I should say. The first point is the foundation.
If the foundation is faulty, Well then the whole edifice,
the whole building, will crumble. It's in danger of collapse. If
there is a defective view of the Fall, and of the condition
of man since the Fall, then there will be a defective understanding
of the rest of the Scriptures, and indeed of salvation itself. And this we see in the Harlot
Church of Rome. The Church of Rome takes the
semi-Pelagian view of man which regards him as sick but not dead. The Council of Trent states,
and I quote, The Holy Synod, I think it should read the unholy
synod, anyway, it says the Holy Synod declares that in order
to properly understand the doctrine of justification, it is necessary
that everyone should acknowledge and confess that since all men
lost their innocency in the apostasy of Adam, so that they are servants
of sin, under the power of the devil and of death, nevertheless,
In them free will is by no means extinct, although it is weakened
as to its strength and biased. Now that is a false foundation. And it is on that false foundation
that the whole anti-Christian system, which is the Roman Catholic
Church, is built. It's also the foundation of Arminianism,
of course. But the Scriptures are quite
clear. Paul, writing to the Ephesians, says, and you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins. He tells them that they
were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Now, if they had a free will,
they could not be by nature the children of wrath. at least not
until they had actually sinned, or until they had rejected so-called
offers of grace, so-called offers of salvation. No, David was brought
to see, wasn't he? He was brought to see his total
depravity, as indeed are all the elect of God. Behold, I was
shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Transgressors
from the womb, that's what we all are, all of us. Transgressors
from the womb, born dead in trespasses and in sins, conceived in sin,
shapen in iniquity, children of wrath, dead in trespasses
and sins. Men and women in such a condition
can do nothing good in the eyes of a holy God. They may do those
things which they consider to be good in their own eyes, or
which might appear to be good in the eyes of their fellow men,
but they can never do those things which are good and acceptable
in the eyes of a holy God. Men and women in such a condition
certainly cannot love God. They may be very religious, But
you know, the natural man's religion is nothing more than a covering
of fig leaves, an attempt to cover his nakedness, his shame
and his sin. But woe unto you Pharisees! For
ye tithe mint and ruined all manner of herbs and pass over
judgment and the love of God. The Lord Jesus Christ sees through
the religion of the Pharisee and of the hypocrite. But I know
you that ye have not the love of God in you, he says. What solemn words! And this is the very essence
of real religion, true religion, the love of God. Peter, after
he had thrice denied the Lord, was restored with these words,
Lovest thou me? Lovest thou me? Lovest thou me? Three times the Lord asked him
that question. This is the sum of the first table of the law. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God. with all
thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. Again there in Deuteronomy chapter
10 verse 12 we read these words and now Israel what doth the
Lord thy God require of thee but to fear thy God and to walk
in all his ways and to love him and to serve the Lord thy God
with all thy heart and with all thy soul. This is the very essence
of real religion, true religion, the love of God. But how could
those who are born in sin ever be brought to love God? Well, what is required is a heart
operation. nothing short of an operation
of God upon the heart will bring a man to the love of God again
in Deuteronomy and the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart
and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all
thine heart and with all thy soul that thou mayest live oh
God does the work within and if we are to truly love God then
it is God who must do that work within us. And this is what we
have here in our text. We love Him because He first
loved us. God's love to us is the cause
of our love to Him. It's not vice versa. Herein is love. Not that we loved
God, but that He loved us. and sent his son to be the propitiation
for our sins. Yes, we love him because he first
loved us. When we have a right view of the fall and of
our fallen condition, then we will begin to have a right understanding
of God's love to us. Or may we then be able to comprehend
with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height
of that love. This then is our foundation.
Except the Lord loved us first, we would never and we could never
be brought to love Him because of our fallen nature as sinners. And the fact that there are some
who are brought to love God, it shows that there are some
whom God has loved. Well, let us consider the love
of God to us and we shall see, I trust, that the love of God
is previous to our love to Him as we consider it firstly in
eternity and then secondly as it is manifested in time. And
then thirdly, and by way of conclusion, we shall consider something of
our love to God. We love Him because He first
loved us. So firstly, let us consider the
love of God to us in eternity. The love of God to us is previous
to our love to Him. It is before our love to Him.
God's love is first. We love him because he first
loved us. Indeed, his love to us is previous
to our very existence. And it is previous to the existence
of the world. It's previous to the foundation
of the world. According as he has chosen us in him before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love. having predestinated us unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to
the good pleasure of his will." Ah, no free will here. According
to the good pleasure of his will. His love then is first for it
is eternal. And by eternal we don't mean
merely that it lasts to all eternity. Yes, of course it does do that.
It is eternal in that sense. But the word eternal probably
means not only to all eternity, but from all eternity. Eternity
is a timeless state. There is no beginning and no
end to it. And if God's love is eternal, and it must be for
God is love and he is eternal and immutable well then his love
could have no beginning it is eternal and unchangeable it's not begun in time as our
love is the elect of God were loved in the eternal covenant
being put into the hands of Christ in that eternal covenant and
made His care and charge. And Christ in that eternal covenant
was made their surety and mediator. Christ was given to them in that
covenant. The elect of God were blessed with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ. This grace we read in 2 Timothy
was given them in Christ Jesus before the world began before
the world began and not loved because of any
good foreseen in them or done by them but purely because God
would love him because God would love them it's his will it was
his good pleasure he willed to love them and his will to love
them is his love of them he first loved us in the second place
the love of God to us is manifested in time and yet this love as it is manifested
to us in time is still previous to our loving him It's not that
we loved him and then he manifested his love to us, he showed us
his love. That love which he had from us to all eternity?
No. It is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour
Jesus Christ. This John tells us here in this
chapter, verse 9. 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 it was out of his love to sinners
that the father sent his son to be the Saviour of the world. He sent His Son into the world.
John 3.16, that well-known misquoted, misapplied word so often. John
3.16, 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. For God sent not His Son into
the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him
might be saved. It was out of his love for sinners,
both of the Jews and of the Gentiles, that's the meaning of the word
woe, that the Lord of glory, the Lord Jesus Christ, condescended
to dwell in a house of clay, that is in a human body with
a human soul, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and
took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness
of men. And this blessed doctrine of
the Incarnation is not something we preach once a year in December
on an invented holy day imposed on the professing church by Antichrist,
no. It is something we preach all
the year round because it's the gospel. This is a faithful saying
and worthy of all acceptation, that is, worthy of all acceptation
in all places, at all times, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. The purpose of Christ coming
into the world, of taking a human nature unto himself,
yet without sin, was that he might die. This was his purpose
in coming into the world. He was to be offered up as a
sacrifice for sin. It is at Bethlehem and at Golgotha
and indeed all the road between from the womb to the tomb that
we see the love of God manifested toward us. Here in his love Not that we
loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins. This love, although it is manifested
in time, yet it is still previous to our loving Him. Not that we
loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins. As Paul says in Romans chapter
5, For when we were yet without strength, In due time Christ
died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even
dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Dr. Gill, commenting on that verse,
Romans 5 verse 8, he says that the character of the elect Again,
I quote, "...before conversion is particularly mentioned here
to illustrate the love of God to them, notwithstanding this
their character and condition, and to show that the love of
God to them was very early, it anteceded their conversion, it
was before the death of Christ for them, yea, it was from everlasting."
and also to express the freeness of it, and to make it appear
that it did not arise from any loveliness in them, or from any
love in them to him, nor from any works of righteousness done
by them, but from his own sovereign will and pleasure. Yes, it was while we were yet
sinners while we were yet in a state of sin, in a state of
enmity against God, that Christ died for us. His love to us predates
our love to Him. He first loved us. But there is a further manifestation
of the love of God in time, and that is in the elect sinner's
soul. Because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost which is given unto
us. The Holy Ghost is given unto us in the new birth. This is
that glorious operation, that gracious operation of which we
spoke earlier, the circumcision of the heart. It's something
that God does, it's the new birth. The Lord Jesus Christ, having
finished the work which the Father gave him to do, rose from the
dead. He ascended up into heaven, and the Holy Ghost is now sent.
And he is sent into the hearts of elect sinners. And you have
he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Now, to
quicken means, of course, to make alive. It's an old-fashioned
word. I looked it up in a dictionary just out of interest and it doesn't
even give this definition, it's so archaic really. But the word
means to make alive. And so we read of the quick and
the dead, that is the living and the dead. To be quickened
means to be made alive, being made alive, being quickened by
God the Holy Ghost. The elect sinner is made to feel
his sinful nature and condition. He's made to feel himself to
be a sinner before a holy God. He is brought to see that he
is a debtor under the law and that the law demands a perfect
obedience which he cannot possibly pay because he is a sinner and
all that proceeds from him is sin. And even if he were to render
from henceforth and for the rest of his days all that the law
required, which is of course impossible because of the nature
that is inherited from Adam. Well then, what of the debts
he has already incurred? The just sentence of the law
hangs over his head. The soul that sinneth it shall
die. The soul that sinneth it shall
die. For the poor sinner is brought to an end of himself. What must
I do to be saved? The Lord Jesus Christ is revealed
in the Gospel as that one who has stood in the sinner's place.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's
the promise of the Gospel. He has come as a man to do that
which was required of man. That is to keep the law. and
he kept it most perfectly he did no sin neither was guile
found in his mouth he went about doing good and having perfectly kept all
the law of God he then suffered as a man the
just punishment that was due to men for their transgression
of the law. But now once in the end of the
world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself. It's Christ in the sinner's place. He took the place of the condemned
transgressor and suffered death on his behalf. And only those souls who are
quickened by divine grace, who know something of the love of
God the Holy Ghost being shed abroad in their hearts, will
ever be brought to look savingly to the Son of God who loved us
and gave himself for us. Only he who created the world
can make a Christian. The Christian is a new creation.
Only he who raised his son from the dead can quicken a sinner
dead in trespasses and sins. And this manifestation of the
love of God to the soul is previous to any love to God on our part. It is rather the cause of all
true Spiritual love to God. The filial fear of God. As we
often speak of it, the fear of God, that's the true love of
sonship to the Father. Filial fear, the love of God,
the worship of God. We love Him because He first
loved us. And so in the third place, and
by way of conclusion, I would point out that this love of God
to us, which is from eternity and manifested in time, is productive. It produces a fruit, and that
fruit is love. We love him because he first
loved us. William Gadsby asked the question
in his excellent catechism, what is love? What is love? The answer he gives is this.
Love is a grace of the spirit communicated to the believer
whereby he loves and delights in God and in his ways, word,
worship and people. Now let us examine ourselves
for a few moments. Are we those who love and delight
in God and in his ways? Or are we those who love and
delight in the ways of the world? John says earlier in his epistle, Love not the world, neither the
things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. all that is in the world
the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride
of life is not of the father but is of the world and the world
passeth away and the lust thereof but he that doeth the will of
God abideth forever are we those who laugh and delight
in the word of God charity as we are told Rejoiceth not in
iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. Concerning the reprobated
it is written that they receive not the love of the truth that
they might be saved. Are we going to listen to the
lies of the political establishments and of the mainstream media? or are we going to listen to
the truth of the word of God? Then said Jesus to those Jews
which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are
ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free. The devil is the father of lies,
and his lies will enslave us. The truth of Christ and only
the truth of Christ will make us free. If the Son therefore
shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Are we those who love and delight
in the worship of God? In Psalm 116 the psalmist says,
I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice
and my supplications, because he hath inclined his ear unto
me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. That is, I will worship him as
long as I live. He goes on to say in that psalm
What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward
me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the
Lord. Likewise in Psalm 97 verse 10. Ye that love the Lord hate evil. He preserveth the souls of his
saints. He delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked. Light
is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart.
Rejoice in the Lord ye righteous and give thanks at the remembrance
of his holiness. Where there is the real love
of God there will be the true worship of God. Are we those
who love the people of God and delight in their company? I remember our dear friend and
brother, faithful minister of the gospel in Guernsey, Graham
Miller, preaching here a few years ago now on Acts 4 verse
23. And being let go, they went to
their own company. Their own company. Peter and
John had been arrested following the miracle that was wrought
on the lame man and they were brought before the council. and
being let go they went to their own company. That's how they
regarded the gospel church, their own company. Is that how you
regard the gospel church? Is it your own company? David could say, Lord I have
loved the habitation of thy house and the place where thine honour
dwelleth. That is the gospel church. What is the church? It's not this building. It's
not any building which the Lord's people might meet in. No, it's
that people which Christ has loved and given himself a ransom
for. Christ also loved the church
and gave himself for it. Are you of that company? Can
you say with the Psalmist in Psalm 119, I am a companion of
all them that fear thee and of them that keep thy precepts.
Are you a lover of good men, the saints of the Most High?
We read in this chapter, don't we? verses 11 and 12, Beloved, if
God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath
seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth
in us, and his love is perfected in us. And at the end of the chapter,
from the words of our text, in verse 19, we love him because
he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and
hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And his commandment hath we from
him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. The love that we show to one
another, the love that we demonstrate to one another, or to any of
the Lord's people, is an expression of our love to God and to His
Christ. which is why the King says in
the Day of Judgment to his blessed people, the sheep on his right
hand, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these,
my brethren, ye have done it unto me. That which he has done against
his people he takes personally too, has done to himself. Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me? not to love and not to show love
is a grieving of the Holy Spirit. As Paul says there in Ephesians
chapter 4 from verse 30, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of
God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all
bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking
be put away from you with all malice, and be ye kind one to
another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for
Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers of
God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also hath
loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice. This love then is a grace of
the Holy Spirit. Love is a grace of the Spirit
communicated to the believer whereby he loves and delights
in God and in his ways, word, worship and people. It is the
fruit of the Spirit as we've said before. But do we not find, if we are
honest with ourselves, that our love to God, and indeed our love
to one another, is very imperfect? Why is that? Well, we have the
answer in Galatians chapter five, verse 17. For the flesh lusteth
against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, And these
are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do
the things that you would. The corruption that is yet within
us, the flesh, or the old man, constantly opposes this grace
of the Spirit, so that we cannot love as we would. Isn't this expressed in so many
of our hymns? Lord, it is my chief complaint
that my love is weak and faint, yet I love thee and adore, O
for grace to love thee more. O in all our praying, let us
ever pray for that best of all donations, the gift of the Holy
Ghost, the Lord Jesus Christ has promised us. If ye then,
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,
How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to
them that ask Him? It is through the Spirit that
we do mortify the deeds of the body. It is through the Spirit
that this blessed fruit of the Spirit is produced. From me is
thy fruit found, God says by the prophet Hosea. Well, may
the Lord then bless his word to each one of us. May we each
one know the shedding abroad of his love in our hearts by
the Holy Ghost. We love him because he first
loved us. Amen. Let us sing Before we come to
prayer, the hymn number 579. The tune is Sorely 231.