Thank you kindly. I invite your attention to the
prophecy of Jeremiah chapter 31. Prophecy of Jeremiah, chapter
31. My text will be found in verse
number 3. My message is titled, Eternally
Loved and Lovingly Drawn by Jehovah. And in case anyone wonders, yes,
I still have the bookmark that says, I love you. that my wife
made for me lo those many years ago. I was asked just a moment
ago if I still had it. I do. I'm blessed to be here, thankful
for the opportunity, and very appreciative of the hospitality
that has been shown, the fellowship that we have enjoyed, and the
friendship that we've had for many years. Pray that the Lord
be pleased to meet with us tonight and to bless his word and the
declaration, hopefully, of the gospel of his son. I'm going
to read just this one verse. The Lord has appeared of old
to me saying, yes, I have loved you. with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness,
I have drawn you. This is the confession of every
child of God. Eventually, I say eventually
because of the term of old, he appeared to me. Eventually, this
is the confession of every child of God, that Jehovah has appeared
to me some time ago and declared that He loved me and that He
lovingly drew me to Himself. It's a good confession. I hope
it's yours. It's mine. I hope that it is
yours. We're going to look tonight,
first of all, at the fact that according to our text, and we
believe it to be true, that Jehovah has appeared to believers. Notice in our text that the word
LORD is in all uppercase letters, that is God's name par excellence. That is His covenant name by
which He is known to His covenanted people. It is the name Jehovah. Jehovah has appeared. That is a remarkable statement
because of the fact that Jehovah is incorporeal spirit. He has
no body. no flesh, no blood, no bone,
no sinew. He is perfect and complete spirit,
and yet He has appeared. Furthermore, He is the only God
who ever has appeared, the only God who can appear. Hundreds of prophets cried on
Carmel for Baal to appear one day, cried and begged all day
long. Baal cannot appear. Dagon cannot
appear. Baal and Nebo, the gods of Babylon,
the gods of Syria, the gods of whatever nation, not a single
solitary one of them can appear. This God has. Jehovah has appeared. He has appeared in many instances. In Old Testament times, we read
that he appeared to Abraham when he was in Ur of the Chaldees
because Abraham needed to hear the gospel. There was no gospel
preacher in Ur of the Chaldees. So God himself, the Lord of glory,
appeared to Abram when he was in Ur of the Chaldees and preached
the gospel to him. Moses saw God in the burning
bush. And later we learned that God
spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks with his friend. He appeared to Jacob at Peniel
and Jacob says, I have seen God face to face and my life has
been preserved. He appeared to Isaiah when the
prophet wrote, in the year the king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord
high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple. And here he appeared to Jeremiah. Jeremiah says, Jehovah appeared
to me a long time ago, declaring that he loved me and that he
lovingly had drawn me to himself. Consider furthermore that every
appearance of Jehovah is in the person of Jesus Christ. Every
time you read that Jehovah has appeared, it is not in the person
of God the Father, but rather it is in the person of the Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ. He says, He who has seen Me has
seen the Father in John 14, 9. He says, He who sees Me sees
Him who sent Me, John 12, verse 45. The Holy Spirit says that
Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God and the express
image of His person. Those who saw Jehovah, in the
person of Jesus Christ in Old Testament times, knew that they had seen him.
They may not have known the person in which they saw Jehovah, but
Jesus declared that when Isaiah saw me, that he spoke of my glory
and spoke of me. When Jehovah appeared in the
Old Testament, it was in the person of Jesus Christ. When
Jehovah appeared in the New Testament, it was as God manifested in the
flesh. When the Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us, and his apostles says, we beheld his glory, the
glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. And we today, have been blessed
to see Jehovah. For it is the God who made the
light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts. Notice that the text does not
say that He shone into our hearts. Rather, God Himself has shone
in our hearts. has taken residence in our hearts
and there has shown and has revealed the knowledge of His glory in
the face of Jesus Christ. It takes the eye of faith to
see Him, but if you have believed the gospel of Jesus Christ, You
have been blessed to know that God has shone in your heart,
and that the face of Jesus Christ has been revealed to you, and
that you with the eye of faith have been blessed to behold him.
We therefore can say with Jeremiah, if we believe his gospel, that
Jehovah appeared to me of old. This is especially true for some
of us who believed the gospel many years ago. I'm now in my
70th year. It was many years ago when the
Lord appeared to me, and some of you here are older than I
am, and He probably appeared to you before He appeared to
me. But if you have believed the gospel, Jehovah has appeared
to you. And if you are a believer, a
new believer, if you live long enough, you also can say, he
appeared to me of old a long time ago and declared his love
to me and lovingly drew me to himself. If you have a marginal
rendering in your Bible, it may indicate that this phrase may
be translated, he appeared to me from afar. Well, that's true. From afar. I was as far from
him as I could be when he first appeared to me. You read a little
earlier tonight, out of the depths I have cried unto you. Our soul
was as deep as it could be in our depravity and in our sin
when he appeared. From the ends of the earth, we
may cry unto him and he will appear instantaneously. He appears not only of old, but
from a long distance away. Consider, second, that Jehovah
has loved believers with an everlasting love. I want you to consider
the loved, the lover, and the love. Now consider, first of
all, the loved. For Jehovah tells every one of
his people, I have loved you. I have loved you. Jehovah does not say that to
everyone. There are some people whom he says he hates. The Holy
Spirit declares in Psalm chapter 5 verse 5 that you hate all workers
of iniquity. All of them. Every one of them. You hate all workers of iniquity. Now since Jehovah loves some
people, you should gather from that that there are some people
whom he does not consider to be workers of iniquity. But he says, I hate all workers
of iniquity. You hate the bloodthirsty and
the deceitful man. The wicked and the one who loves
violence his soul hates. In fact, the 5th and the 11th
Psalms go to great lengths to let us know the people whom Jehovah
hates. Some say, well, it seems to me
that God has to love everyone. No, God does not have to love
anyone. If he hated us all, it would
be just. If he loves one, that's mercy
more than our race ever deserved. And he loves a multitude. That's
grace beyond comprehension, grace beyond measure. I have loved
you, he says this to every one of his people. He does not love
everyone, but he does love many. And he declares to every one
of them that he does. Consider what we were when he
set his love on us. We were unholy, morally filthy,
polluted with sin. We were unrighteous, worthy of
condemnation, full of guilt. We were, as one of the men in the book
of Job says, maggots and worms. in the excrement of sin and depravity,
in feeding on death. Maggots and worms, folks, that's
what we are by nature. Man is a maggot and a worm, every
one of us. What is more despicable than
a maggot and a worm? You've seen them in the dung
heaps You've seen them feeding on dead flesh. I dare say you
never picked one up and remarked about how beautiful it was and
how worthy it was of your love. Well, God is the only one who
is capable of loving maggots and worms like you and I are
by nature, maggots and worms. That's the kind of people God
loves. God loves the sorts of people
that his loved ones acknowledge themselves to be, bloodthirsty
and deceitful and wicked lovers of violence and workers of iniquity. Now, someone may say, when I
preach here, I just don't think I'm quite that bad. Well then,
that's pretty good proof God doesn't love you. If you're not the worst sort of humanity that
there is, for God loves the chief of sinners, the worst of sinners,
they who are completely unlovely, Unlovable and unloving. That's the sort of people that
God loves. That's the sort of person I learned
myself to be one day, a long time ago when he appeared and
said, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Some say they're holier than
others. Get away from me. I am holier than thou. God says,
I hate that sort. They are a smoke in my nostril
all day long. God hates holier than thou people. God hates self-righteous people. But God loves the worst of humanity,
people like me. He appeared a long time ago to
let me know He loved me, though I deserved it not. He
loved me, though I deserved his hatred and his wrath forever.
He loved me. He appeared long ago to tell
me that. I love you, he said. I have loved
you with an everlasting love. All right. You've seen the loved. I hope you're one of them. Now
consider the lover. Jehovah tells believers, I have
loved you. I care not a whit. Who hates
me? As long as I can know, he loves
me. Matters not if the whole world
hates me, if I can but know that God loves me, that his love has
been set upon me. I take great delight, and my
soul is very much comforted in knowing this, that Jehovah has
said to my soul, I have loved you, I have loved you. And he's proved it. He has done more for our good
than our haters could ever do for our harm. Do you want to
see proof that God has loved sinners like me and others to
whom He has appeared of old? Well, come back with me. Come
back with me before the foundation of the world. Come back with
me into old eternity. Come back with me when there
was never nothing there but God himself. Come back with me to
that time when God looked upon lost humanity and saw sinners
such as I was. God says, here's the proof of
my love. I chose you. I chose you out
of your sin, out of your depravity, out of your unholiness, and out
of your unrighteousness. I chose you to be holy and blameless,
sanctified and justified. I chose you unto salvation. I
chose you to stand before me eternally in love. Not only did
I choose you unto salvation, but I loved you enough to predestine
you to be my adopted son. I loved you enough to conform
you and predestine you to be conformed to the image of my
only begotten Son. I loved my only begotten Son
so much that I decreed that all my adopted sons would be just
like Him. I loved them that much. God in
old eternity loved sinners like me enough to make me highly favored
and accepted in Jesus Christ, his beloved son. You want proof
that God has loved me? Well, that's what the Father
did for me in old eternity. And I know he loved me because
it took love to do that for a sinner such as I was. But come with
me in time 2,000 years ago and I can show you how that Jesus
Christ loved me. Come with me to Bethlehem 2,000
years ago. Come with me on a night when
there was no room found in the inn for a Galilean girl about
to give birth. Look at that little infant there
in that manger, in that cattle stall. You want to see how much
the Son of God loved me? He loved me enough to lay aside
His heavenly glory. He loved me enough to lay aside
the exercise of His deity. He loved me enough to take on
my flesh and clay, to be born of a woman. He loved me enough
to know my weaknesses and my infirmities, to endure all my
temptations. He loved me enough to endure
this life. He loved me enough to know sweat
and toil and labor, hunger and thirst and weariness. He loved
me enough to undergo all of that. He loved me enough to come into
this world and to show love unto me like none else could ever
do for me. I see love when I look into that
manger. I see love when I see that infant
there in that cattle stall. Behold him for thirty-three and
a half years living under God's law. He, the lawmaker, has become
the law keeper for thirty-three and a half years, walked upon
this earth, fulfilled God's law in every jot and tittle. None
else could do it. He did it. Why? He loved me. He had to fulfill that law to
prove his love for me. Come with me. to a garden one
night. He knows he is to be betrayed
in a few hours. And there he is, kneeling before
his father, sweating, as it were, great drops of blood. He knows
what is about to happen. He prays, Father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me, but nevertheless, Your will be done,
not mine. What was it that caused His sweat
to roll off of His body as though it were great drops of blood? It was His love for me, and knowing
that for me, in just a few hours, He would be made sin. It was
knowing that he would be made to be what was most despicable
to him. He would be made what I was,
sin. He would be numbered among transgressors,
and he loved me enough to undergo it. He loved me enough that when
soldiers came to arrest him, He could have called for 12 legions
of angels to deliver him. He did not do it. He complied
and went with them, knowing that he was going to his death. Why
did he do so? He loved me. He loved me. He was proving it. Behold him
there, being tried by the Sanhedrin. They asked him if he's the son
of God. He says, it is as you said, knowing
that it would be the ground for blasphemy, according to their
justice, and that it would lead to his death. Why did he do so? He says, I have loved you that
much. Behold him in Pilate's judgment
hall. They have tied him to a stake
or to a post in that judgment hall. They've taken him to the
barracks of the soldiers. They've taken a cat of nine tails
and they have lashed his body. Thirty-nine stripes with that
cat of nine tails lashing and plowing his body. Why did he do it? He says, you
see this? I have loved you this much. Behold him when his enemies call
for his crucifixion. Behold him. Behold that trail
of blood that leads from Pilate's judgment hall to the place of
a skull. Behold Him as they lay a cross
there upon the ground and lay Him across it. Behold Him as
they drive those spikes into His hands and to His feet. Behold Him as He prays for me,
for me. Behold Him as He prays, Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do. Why would He do
that? He says, I did it because I have
loved you with an everlasting love, and He's proving it. Behold
Him for three hours in solid darkness. The sun refuses to
shine. Behold Him as He suffers the
wrath of God. against my sin. For the second
time he fulfills God's law, first in his obedience to God's law
in fulfilling every jot and tittle, and now he fulfills God's law
in bearing the punishment for my sin. The eternity of damnation
that I deserve and all of God's elect deserve He endured it for
three hours. He endured not only defection
by his own disciples, rejection by his enemies. He endured being
forsaken. Even by God, for he cries, My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I can give you one reason
why God forsook him. It is because Jesus Christ loved
me. Loved me enough to bear my shame,
become sin for me, and to die the death that I deserve and
the death that all of God's people deserve. He did it. You want
to see what love is? Well, look at Calvary. You never
saw such a manifestation of love as there was on Calvary. When
Jesus could look at us and say, you want proof that I have loved
you? Here it is. Here it is. I have loved you
with an everlasting love. Now consider the love. I have
loved you with an everlasting love. When we consider the Word
everlasting, we usually think of things that are still in the
future, and we say, His love has no ending. Well, it works
the other way just as positively. For His love goes all the way
into the past. It had no beginning. Here is
eternal, everlasting love. It is everlasting from eternity
past, through all ages of eternity, and in eternity all yet to come. It is an everlasting love. It
is a love that had no beginning, a love that has no ending. My finite mind does not comprehend
that. I love that woman right there.
The woman who married me many years ago. There was a time when
I did not love her. For there was a time when I did
not know her. You cannot love whom you do not
know. If God loved me from eternity, He knew me from eternity. I was
foreknown of Him in His eternal decree. He loved me from all
eternity with an immutable love that never changes. Young man
may want to impress his girl, and he says, I love you more
today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow. Well, that
might sound good in songs, but that's not much of a love. I
mean, really? I mean, she should reply, how come
I have to wait until tomorrow to be loved more than today?
Why can't I be loved today like you say you're going to love
me tomorrow? Well, God never said that to anyone. God never
said, I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as
tomorrow. His love is immutable. It never
changes. Behold, David facing the Philistine
giant Goliath, the man who has blasphemed the God of Israel,
Behold the youth, David, going up to face the giant, and all
of Israel's future depends upon what he does in the next moment.
David slays the giant, brings the giant down, and all Israel
loved David. Well, God loved David too. On the day when David killed
Goliath, God loved David, the man after my own heart, he calls
him. A few years later, that man, the champion of Israel,
David is in bed with Bathsheba, plotting the death of her husband.
And God loved David just as much then as he did on the day when
David slew the giant. Now I don't understand that love.
That's beyond my comprehension. People do me wrong, I don't love We do God wrong, and He says,
I love you just the same. I have loved you with an everlasting
love. I have loved you with an immutable
love. A love with no beginning. A love
with no ending. A love with no change. I have
loved you with an everlasting love. Well, Lord, if I may be so bold,
has to ask one more question. Can you give me one more proof
that you love me? Well, of course I can, he says.
I have loved you with an everlasting love and therefore with loving kindness I have drawn
you. He drew me. He not only loved
me, he drew me. He loved me when I was a maggot
and a worm in the excrement of my sin. And He loved me enough to pull
me out of it and to draw me in loving kindness to Himself. And it was necessary for Him
to do so. He loved me when I was unwilling
to come to Him. Jesus says, you are not willing
to come to me that you may have life. And that was me. That was
me, unwilling to come. So he came down and called me. And he made me willing in the
day of his power. And I was drawn. I was drawn
irresistibly. I was willing then when he made
me willing in the day of his power. He drew me to himself
when I was incapable of coming to him. For he not only says,
you are not willing to come, but he says, you cannot come
unless the Father who sent me draws you to me. Well, I was
incapable of coming. I could not come. It was impossible
for me to come. And so I read in scripture that
blessed is the man whom you choose and calls to approach you. Calls to approach you made me
willing to come and gave me the ability to come. And come I did. He drew me out of the depths. We read just a little earlier
in your reading before the message tonight. He drew me out of many
waters. Psalm 18 verse 16, Out of the
floods of sins, afflictions, and sorrows that threatened to
drown me, He drew me out of a horrible pit and out of the miry clay.
Psalm 40 verse 2, He drew me out of the snare of the devil
where I was, having been taken captive by him to do his will. All of these places illustrate
whence He drew me. There I was, unwilling, unable. He made me willing. He made me
willing and able. Not only that, he drew me. How
did he draw me? He did not draw me like one may
make slaves walk behind him in chains. No, not at all. He did
not draw me to himself Like one may put a rope around a rebellious
steer or a horse and try to drag it to himself. No, no, no. Nothing
to chafe me. No cold steel. He drew me with
loving kindness. He drew me with love. He drew
me kindly. He wooed my heart, and I was
smitten, and I was glad to come. I was delighted to come. Now you may ask, how can I know that he loves
me? Well, he will. appear to you
and tell you so. If He loved you, He will. He will draw you to Himself if
He loved you. And if He loved you, you will
love Him because we love Him because He first loved us. And I'll give you one more way
you can know that he has loved you and drawn you. You can say
with the Shulamite in the Song of Solomon, draw me and we will
run after you. Draw me. Spent 27 years of my life running
from him. I have spent every day since
then running to him. Draw me. As long as he draws
me, I'll run to him. And I hope that's your testimony.
I hope that you can say with me, draw me. I will run after
you. Draw me with your loving kindness. Show your love and your kindness
to me. And I'll flee to Christ and run
after you for the rest of my life. And when I learn that I have
been loved with an everlasting love, I will love you with a
love that will never end. For all eternity, Christ and
I will be lovers. And I hope that's your testimony. Oh God, our Father, if you have
not revealed yourself in love to us by now, do so now, I pray. May even this be a night when
you appear to some benighted soul and declare your love. May this, even this be a night when you begin to draw some benighted
sinner to yourself with loving kindness. May this be the night
that some soul may say, draw me and I will run after you and
rejoice to know that you appeared of old to me saying, I have loved
you with an everlasting love and therefore with loving kindness
I have drawn you. And we thank you for this love,
in Jesus' name, amen.