Well, that's a good song. That's a blessing. I hope the
Lord will honor that prayer in the form of a song. Break the
bread. Reveal Himself like the disciples, like He did to the
disciples on that road to Emmaus. They knew Him in the breaking
of bread. And we break open the bread here this evening. Turn
back to John chapter 3 with me. John chapter 3. I wrote down
the title of my message, The Love of God. And it just about
made me want to take a different subject because of the magnitude
of this and my own feelings of insufficiency. and inability
to handle this, and my own deadness and dryness and coldness in thinking
about God's love. What a subject! That God Almighty, the holy,
infinite, awesome God of the universe, before whom the moon
and the stars are not pure, would love a worm, a worm like me. And I want to do far more this
evening, far more than just disprove the blasphemous notions that
men have of this love of God. I want to do far more than just
disprove those, but I want to glorify and magnify the true
love of God in this passage. I have a tendency to take a look
at these things only in the light of, or only in the sense of trying to disprove what people
abuse and misuse there. But there's far more to be seen
here than just trying to prove doctrine. The love of God is
to be seen here. Now, let me go into this a little
bit though. Because it's almost a universal
belief. It's almost understood. Men feel like it should be almost
understood that this love of God that they call love is that
God loves all men without exception. That's just a universal belief,
isn't it? Everybody believes that. And
the one verse of Scripture that people use Is this John 316 right
here? And they say, here's basically
what men believe. And like I say, I don't want
to dwell on this too much, but it needs to be dealt with. But men say that God loves all
people without exception, whatever, no matter what they have done,
what they are doing now or what they will do in the future. And
that because he loves everyone so very much and wants so very
much to help them, if they will let him, that he sent Jesus Christ
down to earth, down to this earth, to tell them how much that he
loves them, to tell them. And if they will only believe
on Jesus, that they could have so much happiness and eternal
life in doing so. basically sums up what men believe
about the love of God. And as I said, this is the only
verse of Scripture that men use in reference to that, besides
perhaps 1 John 4. John 3, 16 can no more be taken
by itself, out of context, than you could pull one law out of
the whole Levitical law and claim to understand all of it. You
can't do it. You cannot do it. It must be
taken in context. And I say this over and over
again. Listen to this. When you're reading the Word
of God, there's three things you need to understand. Whatever
passage you're reading in the Word of God, you need to understand
who is speaking or as we see here, the Lord is speaking or
writing, who is writing the epistle, to whom is Are they speaking? To whom? They may be talking
to somebody in particular, such as the epistles. If you go to
the first of each epistle, you'll see that they're written to the
churches. They're written to believers. And you need to find
out the subject that they're talking about. Now, who is writing? To whom are they writing or speaking?
And what have they been talking about? Now, you can't just pull
a thought out of the middle of something and claim, well, this
is what he's saying. Now, you've got to go all the way through
it and understand the context. Does that make sense? Understand
what he has been talking about. Now, you remember this morning
the context of this, what he's saying here. This was at nighttime. It's a private conversation between
Christ and this Jewish leader, a Pharisee. And as I tried to
point out this morning, the Pharisees hated Christ. They hated the
gospel and they sought to kill him. So this man came by night
in the cover of darkness. And like I said, remember, from
the beginning the Jews were God's chosen people in a covenant.
They were his chosen people, mostly symbolically. But God
had other people then as he does now. But the Jews didn't think
so. Think about it, the Jews didn't
think so. They still thought, even right
now, they still thought that only the Jews would be saved. Even the apostles had a hard
time with it. We're studying this in Galatians, that even
the apostles thought that a man basically had to become a Jew
outwardly, such with circumcision, for God to save that person.
He had to be a Jew to be saved. And so Christ was dealing with
this Jew, talking to him under the cover of darkness, and the
Jews had two false notions concerning God and his salvation. First
of all, they believed that salvation was by the keeping of the law.
They thought it was still by the keeping of the law. But we
saw this morning, no, it takes a new birth. Salvation is of
the Lord. It's a new birth. It's God doing
something to us. not us doing something for God.
And they believed also that salvation was only for the Jews. But no,
God has a people throughout the world, throughout the world.
And Christ is talking to this self-righteous, legalistic, bigoted
Jewish leader who thought only the Jews would be safe. And Christ
begins to disprove his false notions of the love of God and
his hypocrisy. And as I failed to say this morning,
really, he got right to the point with this man's problem. He told
him, you're lost. That's what he said in so many
words. He got right to the point. The man had thought he had it
all figured out in doctrine and so forth. But Christ got right
to the root of the matter and said, you don't know God. You
haven't been born from above. You don't know Christ. You don't
know who you're speaking to. And you claim to have God as your
father. Remember when he talked to the
Pharisees before? And he said, if God were your
father, you'd believe me. But he's not your father. He's
not. Now look at verse 10 again with
me. And he derides this man. He says, Are you a teacher of
Israel and don't know these things, these fundamentals of the truth
that God is indeed God and that man is a helpless hopeless, wretched
sinner before God, and that no man is deserving of God's favor? Instead of God's free and sovereign
grace, is anybody saved? Are you ignorant of these things?
And that only by the sacrifice of God's Son will He save anybody? I ran into a fellow one time
who had a Master of Divinity, and the man could hardly quote
any Scripture. A Master of Divinity, had God
mastered. But people, for the most part,
are ignorant concerning the basic truths of the Scripture. And
this is one area where they're so very ignorant, the love of
God. Peter said they're willingly ignorant, though. They're willingly
ignorant. Paul said they've heaped to themselves teachers having
itching ears to tell them what they want to hear. They've paid
men big money, given them flattering titles to tell them what they
want to hear. Hirelings. Hirelings, Christ
called them. Hirelings tell people what they
want to hear, but God's messengers tell people what God wants to
hear, what God has told them to tell. God's messengers tell
the truth about their Lord. Look at verse 11. So he says,
Nicodemus, of a truth, verily, verily, I say unto thee, we speak
what we know. We speak what we know. Paul said,
I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded. I'm persuaded. We speak what we know and testify
that we have seen, and you don't believe. You receive not our
witness. Who's the our? Who's the we he's
talking about there? Look over John chapter 5, verse
31. Christ said we. Who's he talking about? Look
at John 5, 31. He said, if I bear witness of
myself, my witness is not true, as is the case with any man. If he bared witness of himself,
his witness is not true. He said, there's another that
beareth witness of me. Verse 36, I have greater witness than
even of John. The works which the Father has
given me to finish, the same works that I do, they bear witness
of me that the Father has sent me. Verse 37, and the Father
himself. which has sent me and borne witness
of me." Now, he said in verse thirty-nine, search the scriptures,
for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they
which testify of me. So the works of God in Christ,
the Father himself bears witness of the Son, the scriptures bear
witness of the Son, and the Holy Spirit comes to bear witness
of the Son and of the truth of what Christ says. And all these
things will work together in every believer to bear witness
of the truth of what God, what he said. They'll bear witness
within every believer. Now, he said here, he said, you
don't receive my witness. You're not listening to me, uh,
Macadamia. You're not hearing me. You don't
receive my witness. And this is your problem. And
the reason men do not know the things of God is because they
don't receive the witness of God concerning them. Men, we've
seen this before, our men believe what they want to believe. And
they disbelieve what they don't want to believe. They believe
what they want to believe. But believing, true faith is
first receiving as a little child, coming to God's Word, coming
before God's Word as a little child and say, teach me, teach
me. And God opens up the Word, mostly
through a preacher. And you hear it, and you say,
that's what it says. I can't argue with that. That's
exactly what it says, doesn't it? Well, I believe it. I believe it. And then God will
open their understanding as to what it's talking about. So this
is what God requires, first of all, is to just receive the word
as a little child. Just receive it as a little child. Look at verse 12. He said, If
I've told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall
you believe if I tell you heavenly things? If you don't believe
He's saying in Nicodemus, if you don't believe the fundamentals,
the obvious. Remember he gave the illustration
of how a man must be born from above. And the obvious illustration
there is that a man cannot give birth to himself naturally. And
if a man must be born from above, then he has nothing to do with
that spiritual birth either. Now if you can't understand this
simplest of fundamentals, If people, if men, if women can't
understand the simplest of illustrations such as this, how are they going
to understand things like justification, propitiation, righteousness,
sanctification, all these weighty things, meaty things, the meat
of the scripture? Paul says in another place, in
Hebrew, he said, you're just dealing with milk.
You have need to eat some meat, but you can't even take the milk,
he said. And some people can't even take,
receive the milk of God's Word for unbelief, unbelief. They
stumble. It's a stumbling block to the
religious. Christ, that is salvation, is a stumbling block to the Jews,
to the religious. God's sovereignty, man's utter
depravity, and the Savior's successful salvation. So Christ says to
Nicodemus, if you don't understand these things, how are you going
to understand if I tell you the deep things of God? So verse 13, he
says this. But he goes on to explain here,
in mercy and in grace, he goes on to describe to Nicodemus what
salvation is. Now, you remember Nicodemus came
after the Lord. I'm not so sure that the Lord
didn't save Nicodemus in the end. He spent a lot of time with
him, didn't he? More so, and he explained more in depth to
Nicodemus than he did any other pharisee, didn't he? He talked
to this man privately and remember after the Lord rose or after
the Lord died Nicodemus came with was it Joseph he came to
to anoint the body or something like that not to anoint the body
but he begged the body that's what it was with Joseph but he
came privately then also Nicodemus did. But he may have saved old
Nicodemus in the end but he sure did Give him the gospel here,
didn't he? This man could have been saved
by believing what Christ told him right here. And so can you.
So can you. He said, verse 13, Nicodemus,
no man hath ascended up to heaven. You can't get to God. You can't
go to God. You can't come to God. No man
cometh unto the Father, but by me. No man cometh unto the Father,
No man has seen God any time. No man has gone up to the Father
in and of himself. No man can. You cannot come unto
me except the Father draw thee. You cannot go up to God. No man
hath ascended up to heaven, that is, in his own free will and
his own righteousness. But he that came down from heaven,
even the Son of Man, which is in heaven, He had to come down. This is a fundamental truth,
Nicodemus. No man goes up to God, but the
Son of God has to come to him. This is the fundamental. This
is the basis of salvation. But you can't get to God, God's
got to come to you. You can't take the first step.
God has to come get you all the way. He has to go like old Nefibischief. We're lame on both feet. We can't
move. And like Lazarus, we're in the tomb, we're dead, we can't
move. There's a big stone rolled over at the door of our eyes,
and our heart, and our ears. He's got to remove that stone.
He's got to call us with the loud voice of his gospel and
say, come forth, come forth. He's got to come to us. No man
goes to God, God has to come to him. And he says it, he said
it in the morning there, you must be born again, God must
come to you. Salvation is God coming to us,
not by salvation. Not us going to God, but him
coming to us. That's the reason he sent the
Son in the first place. If a man could get to God, if
a man could get to God by working his way, if a man could get to
heaven by working his way up there, why did Christ come? And
that's what he says throughout the Scripture. If you be circumcised,
Christ profit you nothing. If righteousness come by the
law, Christ died in vain. He didn't need to come. If there
was life, if a man could have life by acting according to the
law, why did Christ come? He came because we were dead
in trespasses and sins. And he who is life had to come
to impart life, to speak life. He said, my words are life. I
give life. I give life. The gospel. Now, he said this morning, he
talked about the new birth, the new birth. And the gospel is
the ground of God's gift of eternal life. And this is the basis,
the gospel is the basis of the operation of the Holy Spirit.
Now listen, let me repeat that. The gospel, what he's about to
say here, is the basis of what, of the Holy Spirit's work. In
other words, the Holy Spirit doesn't work on a man apart from
the preaching of the gospel. God sends the gospel first, and
the Holy Spirit takes that gospel and works and creates a new person
by hearing that gospel, a gospel seed. That's what we talked about
this morning. But look at verse 14. He says, Nicodemus, as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. I know old Nicodemus
who knew this story. He was a Pharisee. He'd read
over the law. He knew this story in Numbers
21. He said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. You remember that
story, don't you? Turn over to Numbers 21. Let's
look at that. Numbers chapter 21. The children
of Israel, when they were sojourning through the land, they began
to murmur against God Almighty. Numbers chapter 21. Look at verse
4. They began to murmur and complain
against God, against Moses. And they journeyed from Mount
Hor, verse 4, Numbers 21, by the way of the Red Sea to compass
the land of Eden. And the soul of the people was
much discouraged, grieved because of the way. And of the people,
and the people spake against God and against Moses. They said,
Where have you brought us out of Egypt? to die in the wilderness. There's no bread here. Neither
is there any water. And our soul hates this light
forehead. That's a picture of man now.
That's a picture of man's hatred for the gospel, isn't it? The
natural man receiving not the things of God and rebelling against
God's sovereignty. And the Lord, verse 6, sent fiery
serpents among the people, and they bit the people. and much
people of Israel died. And because of our sin and our
rebellion, by one man sin entered into this world, and so death
by sin. Because of Adam's rebellion,
and because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
This fiery serpent called sin has bit every one of us, and
we have died. We're dead in trespasses and
sin by this fiery serpent called sin. We're dead because of sin. Verse 7, Therefore the people
came to Moses, and said, We have sinned. We have sinned. We have spoken against the Lord
and against thee. Pray unto the Lord. Pray unto
the Lord that he might take away the serpents from us. Pray to
the Lord to take them away. And Moses prayed for the people.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and
set it upon a pole. And it shall come to pass that
every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass,
and put it upon a pole. And it came to pass that if a
serpent that had bitten any man, when that man beheld that serpent
of brass, he lived." This is a perfect picture of the gospel,
how that this sin has This sin serpent has bitten every man.
We were dead and trespassed in sin. And God had to make a serpent,
had to make a man, had to make His Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh, yet without sin. He made Christ. He who knew no
sin was made sin. Christ was made in the likeness
of sinful flesh like this serpent. And He came down here, and God
put upon Him sin, and He hung Him on a pole. to spoil anybody's
thoughts concerning the cross, but right there it says a pole,
a pole. Brother Bill Sasser brought out
to us down there how that the cross wasn't even a cross. It's a pole. It's a beam of wood.
That'd destroy everybody's theology, wouldn't it? Just kill it. Just
kill everybody. That'd break some whole denomination.
Just a pole, just an upright pole. You see, there's no salvation
in a pole. In the cross, it's on the one
hanging there. And those people, just like those
people bitten by that serpent, whoever looked, not to the pole,
but looked on the serpent, lived. They lived. And their bodies
were made whole. And whoever looks upon the Lord
Jesus Christ in faith, with eyes of faith, and you don't have
to see Him with these eyes, but eyes of faith, with heartfelt
faith, just behold, it said there, whoever beheld the serpent. With
a heart, somebody could have been blind out there in that
wilderness. Perhaps the sin of those fiery
serpents had blinded their eyes. The poison had somehow blinded
their eyes, and they couldn't see. Well, as long as they were
pointed in the right direction, they could live. If they were
just pointed, if they just beheld, there's a serpent up there. I
can't see him. I can't see him. He's there. Well, point me to
him. Yes, that's where he is. They
lived. And you may not see Christ. He
said, blessed are your eyes. Blessed are you that you love
him whom you haven't seen. That's what Peter said. You love
him whom you haven't seen. But everybody, anybody who looks
with eyes of faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ hanging on that
cross with your sins upon him is a saved person. So behold
him with eyes of faith that God made him to be the sin for you,
him who knew no sin, that you might be made the righteousness
of God in him. that God gave you his righteousness
and gave him your sin. Anybody that believes that simple,
simple faith in the Son of God, his Savior, is saved. Verse fifteen,
that whosoever believeth, back to John three, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Old Paul
said over in Romans chapter ten, you don't have to turn, but I'll
turn there for you. He said, Whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Who's going to believe
on Christ? Whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have eternal life. Who will believe? Who will believe upon the Lord
Jesus Christ? He said, With a heart man believeth
under righteousness, that if you confess with your mouth the
Lord Jesus, that is, if you confess with your mouth Jesus Christ
to be Lord, sovereign Lord, in control of your eternal soul,
and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead,
you shall be saved." And he goes on to say, "...whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Well, how then
are they going to call on Him whom they're not believing? No
man's going to call upon somebody to save them if they really don't
believe to save them. That's the reason people are
just accepting Jesus and so forth. Really, people aren't calling
out, crying out for mercy. under the Lord Jesus Christ to
save them from their sin. No people just getting right
with God, you know, walking down the aisle, shaking a preacher's
hand. But who's going to call? Those that believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ, that only He and He alone can really save them
from this sin problem, or this fiery serpent that's killed them.
And that presupposes that you know your condition, that you
are indeed dead, and God must save you. Whosoever believes
in him should not perish. Believes what? Believes in him. Who he is and what he had to
do for you and the fact that he did it. It's not good news
to believe in a Christ that can't save you. It's not good news
at all. Not at all. But believe that
he actually put away your sins. Now that's good news. And you'll
call and you'll trust in a Lord like that. Look back at the text,
John 3. God, verse sixteen, he said,
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. You know that little word, for? Two little words there, for,
and so. These qualify what was said before. He's explaining, verse 16 explains
what He said in verse 14. Now, as I said before, I don't
want to be taken up with refuting error. I don't want to be so
taken up with refuting error that we miss the spirit and the
beauty of what He's saying here, the love of God in Christ. But
let's deal with this real briefly. Christ, like I said, He's talking
to a Jew. He's talking to a Pharisee. a
Jew at that. And these were the most bigoted,
prejudiced people on earth. And they still have a lot of
that in them. They still do. And they called, back then, they
called Gentiles dogs. Dogs. Dogs. And it was the Jews,
basically, back then, the Jews thought it was them against the
world. It's the Jews. And they're frequently spoken
of as, you know, this is a type, too. of the church, the church. We read there John 17 tonight
and you'll see it over in 1 John 4 and other places that the church
is pitted against the world. The scriptures speak of the church
and talks about the world. John said in 1 John 5 9 I believe it is that we are of
God and the whole world lies in wickedness. Well, the Jews
back then thought it was them against the world. It was Jews,
God's people, and then there's the world. Look at Romans 11
with me. I'll show you that. Romans 11,
verse 12. Christ said, For God so loved
the world, and people so misconstrued this, and they believe that this
means that God loved every single individual upon the face of the
earth. But that word, world, means every
single person. Romans 11, verse 12, look at
this, there's another mention of the word. Now, he said, if
the fall of them, he's talking about the Jews, he's talking
about in this whole chapter how the Jews did not believe the
gospel, didn't they? If you've read this, you understand.
Now, he says, if the fall or the unbelief of the Jews be the
riches of the world, and the diminishing of them, the Jews,
the riches of the Gentiles. See that? How much more their
fullness. Look at verse fifteen. For if
the casting away of the Jews be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them
be but life and the dead? Reconciling of the world? Now
Job, God hasn't reconciled the whole world to himself. If he
has, then the whole world is friends. to God. That's what
reconcile means. He made friendly toward God.
But he says that the carnal mind, the natural mind, is inmate against
God. And he hasn't reconciled the whole world to himself. And
the world hasn't received the riches as a result of the Jews
not receiving the gospel. But a world of people has. A
world of people. And so he's telling old Nicodemus
here that God is so merciful. And so great and so gracious
that he has a people out of every nation, out of every nation,
out of every kindred, out of every tribe under God's heaven. He has a people, not just the
Jews, but a world of people, a world of people. And if this
word, world, means every single individual, if God so loves the
world, every single individual, And some people go to hell. That's demeaning and blasphemous
and belittling and cheapening the love of God. I don't know why I'm being insist
upon that. And we don't... The reason we hold the truth
is self-evident. But we're not trying to be exclusive
and say that God just loves certain people. But what we're trying
to show is that the love of God must be glorified. The love of
God must be effectual love. It must be particular love in
order to be a glorious love. You see, I've given this illustration
before. If I love my daughter, and I do, and she falls down, she has a
terrible fall, and it hurts herself, and I love her, and I want to
help her, and I love her so much, I'm going to help her. I'm going
to do what it takes to pick her up, right? I'm not going to leave
her of her own. of her, to herself. And I'm not,
certainly not going to go up to her and say, would you like
to, like for me to help you? I'd like to if you, if you'll
let me. No, my love is such that when I see her fall, that I go
and I grab her and I pick her up and I put her to my bosom
and I comfort her and I stab her wounds, like that good Samaritan,
you know. That's love. That's a perfect
picture of the love of God. reaching down in the ditch when
all else passes by, reaching down in the ditch and picking
a man up when he can't pick himself up, and healing him, nursing
his wound, and taking him all the way to the end, and sending
somebody to care for him as long as it takes. The Holy Spirit,
that is. That's the love of God. The love
of God is effectual. The love of God actually picks
a man up out of the ditch and actually saves him. Doesn't try
to. It doesn't just want to. It does. The love of God is active. And
there is no love. There's no love in mere theory
only. I'm afraid some of us got that
wrong impression in our marriages and in our relationship with
others, that if you just say you love them, it is just understood
you love them. No, love is active. Love is active. Love goes to someone and meets
a need. And I've given this illustration
to before. That. When I asked my wife to marry
me. What if I asked her to marry with you honey would you would
you marry me and she says to me. Well. Did you love me. And I say to
her oh yes I do. I love all women. Yeah, I love
you, and I love if I love Deborah, and I love Jenny, and Jeanette. I love all women. Yeah, I love
you. Of course I do. Love all women. Wouldn't you
marry me? Joe, would my love mean a thing
to her? Why, she'd hate me. She wouldn't
love me, and that wouldn't mean a thing to her. She'd think,
well, that's no love. I don't want that kind of love.
And I don't want this love that they're talking about. This love
that can't do anything for me. Do you? Do you? Does it mean,
would it, would it, would it endear God to you to think that
He loves you and yet you can go to hell? Yet He would cast
you into hell? Like somebody said, can you imagine
a bumper sticker on the arch, on Noah's arch, saying, smile,
God loves you? Oh, no. That's ridiculous. That's blasphemous, what that
is. It cheapens the love of God. But I tell you what, like somebody
else said also, there was a bumper sticker on that ark. But it was
on the inside of the ark. Not on the outside, for all men.
The love of God was on the inside of the ark. And the love of God
is in Christ. It's in Christ. God loves those
in Christ. Yes, He does. The scriptures
are very clear. Psalm 5, 5 and 7, 11. God hates all workers of iniquity.
God's angry with the wicked every day. Jacob have I loved, Esau
have I hated. But like I said, I don't want
to dwell on this so much as to lose the spirit of this thing.
If a man will desire to know the truth, the will of God, he'll
understand the truth of the doctrine. But no, Christ is, he's been,
what he's been talking about, he's been talking about, he said,
now you must be born again, Nicodemus. He was talking about the sovereignty
of God in salvation. And then he's talking about the
sovereignty of the Spirit. The Spirit moves where it listens.
And now he's talking about the sovereign love of God. The sovereign
love of God. God's sole love. That is, God
loved him this way. Verse fourteen, this is the way,
not God, not the quantity so much of God's love as the quality
of it. This is how God loves, God's
soul, God loved in this way. Four, God loved in this way. He loved the world, that is,
not just the Jews only, but a multitude of people throughout the world,
Jews, Gentiles, Greeks, people out of every tribe, kindred,
nation, and tongue under heaven. God, in this way, loved the world. that he hung his son on a pole.
He made his son a bloody sacrifice. Now think about this, the love
of God in those times. Why? God loves his son, doesn't
he? I mean, he loves his son more
than anybody. If you understand anything from the scriptures,
you understand that. That he's his only begotten well-beloved
son. Well-beloved. If he loves his son so much,
would he dare, would he subject his son to such brutality, hang
him on a pole like a common thief, the most ignominious death? This was the most hideous death,
the death of a common criminal, a thief, a rapist, a robber,
a murderer. Would he hang his son on a pole
like that and kill him like that? only to have it be in vain. That's not showing the love of
God for His Son, is it? And it's not showing the love
of God for us, is it? No. But because God loves His
Son, and because He loves us in His Son, He sent His Son down
here to do for us what we could not do. And He actually got the
job done. And that glorifies the Father's
love for the Son, the fact that He would not subject His Son
to something that wouldn't work. He wouldn't shed one drop of
His precious blood without purpose. That's not only demeaning to
the wisdom of God, but to the love of God also. I love that
little girl with every fiber of my being. Would I cast her
to to anybody to do with what they will for no purpose? Huh? My soul. No, no, no. God in this way loved
the world, that is, the people throughout the world, that He
put His Son on a pole, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish. Who's going to believe? Everybody
God gives faith to. Every one of them will come to
Him. Everyone that the Father draws will come to Christ and
believe in Him. And everyone that believes in
Him, Christ shed His blood for and successfully saved. God so
loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. You
notice how that reads? Read that on through. God so
loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish. Now the word world there can't
mean every single individual because he taught me, he said,
whosoever believeth, God so loves whosoever believeth that he gave
his only forgotten son that they might have eternal life. Whosoever believeth. Who believes?
A people as the sands of the seas and the stars of the sky.
And I say, and I repeat myself, how dare anybody accuse God Almighty
of subjecting His well-beloved Son to such cruel and brutal
punishment, only to have it go in vain? What kind of love is
that? Huh? I don't want a God like that.
I don't want that. God's a monster. That kind of
God is a monster. But you know, it's interesting
to me. I noticed this in studying this. He says, God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish, never perish, but have everlasting
life. And I notice this. Think about
this thing. The people that insist upon the universal love of God
here reject once in grace, always in grace. That's right there, isn't it?
Eternal, everlasting life. Whoever believes, got life, for
good, now and forever. Amen. Now wait a minute now. Boy, they're really mixed up,
aren't they? They take this to mean one thing and not to mean
the other. Oh, no. It's all there. The true love
of God, particular love of God for whosoever believes and whosoever
believes Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord, like Joel
2.32 says, they were called by God. They were called. Whosoever
believes and given the gift of faith by God, and they've got
life. They've got everlasting life.
Hail them, every parish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of the Father's hand, not even themselves, not even yourselves. Well, look at verse 17. But the
beauty God sent not his son into the
world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might
be saved. Now, there we go again. And like I said, I'm not just
trying to prove doctrine, but this is, to think that God would
subject his son to such a death and that God loves people and
they go to hell and that God, wants to save the world, verse
17. He didn't want to condemn the
world, but he wants the world to be saved. You know, is that
talking about everybody? Come on now. That's blasphemous
to the wisdom and the power and the love of God Almighty. That's
blasphemous. But God sent not His Son into
the world to condemn the world, but He sent Christ in the world
to save a world of people. A world of people. And He did,
that the world through Him might be saved. And like I started
to say, the beauty and the glory of this, and aside from disproving
the false notions and all, the beauty and the glory of this,
if only we could enter into it, is that what God would send His
Son into this world, that God would love. Behold,
He said there in 1 John, Behold what manner of love the Father
has bestowed upon us. Very loves unlovely. Why would
God love you? Except in Christ. Except purposely. God, the love of God. The love
of, you know, our love. We love those that love us. We
love those that love us. Or we love those that are of
us. We love our children. We love our husband, our wife.
Our love is conditional. Not the love of God. There's
nothing in us to make God love us. We're unlovely. There's nothing
in us to merit the love of God. God just must up and freely say,
I choose to love Him. Oh, He's unlovely. Well, I know. But I'm going to love Him anyway.
I'm going to set my love upon Him. And that's God's love. It's free love. It's not conditional. It's free. God loves us just
simply because He decided to do so. And that magnifies the
love of God. And men would have us to believe
that God owes it to everybody's love. Don't they? That's what
they get out of John 3, 16. That God ought to love everybody.
God's love, He ought to love everybody. You know, God's first
holy. He's holy. And He loves holy
things. And He'll only love those who
He intends to make holy. Right? God will only love those
he intends to make holy. He's not going to love a man,
he said there in Revelation, he that be filthy, let him be
filthy still. He's not going to love a filthy
person. God loves righteousness. He hates iniquity. He does. But he loves those that he makes
righteous in Christ. And somehow his love is an everlasting
love. He said his love an affection
upon us before the world began, fully intending us to make us
just like Christ. And that's the only way God could
love us, is seeing the finished product, seeing the finished
product. But the beauty of the thing is
that God would love, God would love anybody. Why didn't he just,
after Adam rebelled against him, why didn't he just say, don't
need that Well, for reasons and purposes known only to Him, for
His glory. Beloved, we know we are of God,
and the whole world lies in wickedness. Christ is the Savior of all men,
especially, or more specifically, of them that believe. The whole
creation groaneth, the creation waiteth for the manifestation
of the sons of God. See, the love of God, the love
of God, is upon God's people. It waits. It waits upon God's
people. And that's the reason God's going
to destroy this world. The wrath of God's going to come
down upon this wicked world someday. Yes, it is. It's going to be
destroyed by fire. Why? He hates workers of iniquity. He hates sin. He hates unrighteousness
and all those that are in it. But this whole world is maintained
and upheld by the love and grace of God for his people in Christ. And when the last one is born,
or lives however long God wants that last sheep to live, then
he's going to wipe this whole thing out. He's going to remove,
or rapture, or whatever you want to call it, his people out of
this whole sinful world, and then he's going to rain fire
upon this world. That's not the love of God, is it? It's the
wrath, the holy wrath and vengeance of the God that hates sin, and
all those that work in the that the love of God is in Christ
and the whole creation, the scripture says, waits for the manifestation
of the sons of God. The creation itself shall someday
even be delivered from this bondage of sin. Verse 18, Christ said,
He that believeth on Christ is not condemned. He that believeth
on Him is not condemned. But he that believeth not is
condemned already. That proves what we've been saying,
that some people are under the condemnation of God. Not under
His love, condemnation. Because he had not believed in
the name of the only begotten Son of God. You know, the name
of God, the name, who shall call upon the name, that denotes the
character. It speaks of the name of the
Lord. That means His character. That means who He is. That means
what He's like. That means what He's able to
do. God. Lord, Christ, Savior, the name
in the full sense of the name. And the people that don't believe
really don't believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, but
they draw near with their lips, but their heart is far from believing
in the name that Jesus Christ truly is Lord and their only
hope and Savior with God Almighty. They don't believe in that, in
the truth of Christ. His ability. They're condemned
already. Condemned already. Verse 19.
And this is condemnation. That light has come into this
world. Light. That sounds familiar, doesn't
it? John chapter 1. Light has come into the world.
Men loved darkness rather than light. Because their deeds were
evil. For everyone that doeth evil,
everyone that does evil hates the light. need to come up to
the light, that his deeds should be approved. And you could use
that in reference to dead works, too, and self-righteous works.
Everyone that comes to God with their self-righteous works hates
this gospel of God's free and sovereign grace. They won't have
it, won't bow to it. Now, they prefer their works
of darkness. Men love darkness rather than light, because their
deeds are evil. But they're their own deeds,
and they love their deeds. For everyone that doeth evil hates
the light, neither cometh to the light." And this is a reproof
of old Nicodemus. Nicodemus came into darkness.
He came under cover of darkness. Everyone that doeth evil hateth
the light. Men do most of their works of
wickedness in the nighttime. Neither come to the light, lest
their deeds should be discovered. But, he that doeth truth He that
doeth truth, he that believeth in Christ, he that knows what
he is, he that knows the truth of who God is, what he is, he
comes to the light. He comes like old David in Psalm
139. Search me. Try me. Search my
heart. See if there be any wicked way
in me. Shine the light of your word
in and on and through me. Search out this sin. Search it
out. Search out my heart. Let me examine
myself, see whether or not I'll be of the faith. I want to know
if Christ be in me. I want to know. I don't want
to cover this thing up. I don't want to mask it under
a mask of religion. And I want to know the truth.
I want to know the truth. So he comes to the light, the
light of God's Word, to teach him, instruct him, that his deeds
may be made manifest, that they're wrought in God. He wants to come
to God. You know, men believe that what
you don't know won't hurt you. What you don't know won't hurt
you, they say. But he that is born from above by God's word
of truth, he that believeth, he that knoweth Christ, who is
the truth, he comes to the truth. He comes to Christ, and he receives
the light of God's word for comfort and conviction. The love of God, you see why I almost took a different
subject, but the love of God is far more than
just a discourse on what the love of God is. It goes much
deeper than that. The song says, the love of God
so rich and pure, how measureless and strong it shall forevermore
endure. Saints and angels song. And you
can't drum up feelings and emotion concerning the love of God, but
I wish that God would impress upon us the glory of His love,
the magnitude of His love, the effectualness of His love,
how He accomplishes, how He actually saves us in Christ, but the beauty
and the wonder of it all. And this is John 3, 16. As Calvinists,
this is a general reproof to me and to you, as Calvinists,
we look at that verse, we look at that verse and kind of in
a defensive way, don't we? And so it doesn't mean, you know,
that's the first thing we want to handle is, and that's what
I did, but it doesn't mean what it appears to say the world.
But the beauty of this thing, if we can get past that, If we
can get through that, get over that Arminian false notion that
God loves every single individual without exception, and then some
of them go to hell. If we can get over that and see that God
actually does love a people, and that He actually did send
His Son down here and kill Him, shed His blood to save their
eternal soul, then we can know. Then and then alone can we rejoice
in Him. in this gospel of God. And I hope only God can grant
that heartfelt faith and feeling concerning this love of God.
God must reveal His own love to each heart, not just the doctrine,
but a wonderful and glorious truth. Joe, what was that song
I had picked out and wanted to sing? Why is it the love of God? How could he love me? 67, that was it. 67, how can it be? That's it.
Let's stand and sing this song. O Savior, as my eyes behold the
wonder of thy might untold, the heavens in glorious light arrayed
the vast creation thou hast made. And yet to think our love is
free. My heart cries out, how can it
be? How can it be? How can it be? That God should love us all like
me? Oh, how can it be? I'll sing this third verse, and
you join me on the chorus. How can it be? How can it be? Was ever grace so full and free? From heights of bliss to depths
of woe, in loving kindness Thou didst go from sin and truth to
rescue me. O love divine, how can it be? Oh, how can it be?