The love of God is widely misunderstood
in our day. Somehow people have gotten the
impression that the glorious love of God is more a weakness,
just a good-natured intention, indulgence by God, and it's reduced
to the fact of mere sad sentiment that's padded after human emotion. Now, what do I mean by that?
Well, our God has been portrayed as the man upstairs that loves
everybody and nobody seems to love him in return. He's portrayed
as pleading, begging, frustrated, a God at the mercy of those whom
he created. Men commonly say things like,
won't you allow God to love you? Won't you allow God to save you?
That couldn't be farther from the truth. God is love, but it's
not a pleading, begging love that's frustrated because people
don't seem to love Him back. Men and women's thoughts on God's
love as all God's attributes need to be formed and regulated
by what's revealed in this book. And I'm amazed that men can stand
and say the things that they say about God and hold this Bible. Are they reading it? Are they
studying it? Have they seen whom God declares
Himself to be? Well, I would have to say they
must not be. and must not be because this
Bible, this book is clear about who God is and what He's done
and who He loves. False religion is to be blamed
for this low opinion of the highest deity. Men have created a false
god of their own imagination who's pretty much helpless and
hopeless without the help of puny men and women. The better
we're acquainted with His love, its character, its fullness,
its blessedness, the more our hearts will be drawn out in love
to Him. Now I want you to turn with me
this morning to one passage of Scripture found in Hosea. It's
a little book in the Old Testament right after the book of Daniel. Hosea chapter 14. And I'm not
only going to look at one verse, but I'm only going to dwell this
morning on five words in that verse. And I beg God as you turn
there that He might allow me to expound these words so that
it has some effect on your heart. There are some of you here today
that are still without Christ. Still without God and without
hope in this world. Oh, may these simple words cause
you to repent today, to change, and to see the Lord Jesus Christ
high and lifted up. Hosea chapter 14, verse 4. The whole verse reads, I will
heal their backsliding. But these are the five words,
these little five words found in this glorious text which is
the message of salvation. Look at them with me. I will
love them freely. I will love them freely. The
beauty of how God could love a fallen, depraved, wicked sinner
is found in one of those five words. Freely. That's beautiful
to me. How could God love me freely? It just pleased Him to do so.
If God loves you, it has to be freely. There's nothing in us
or done by us that can make it anything but freely. And without
any cause in us, God loves His people freely. It's uninfluenced
by us. It's unconditional on His part. And it is indeed the only way
in which God can love such fallen creatures as you and I freely. Freely. There's no wonder that
the Apostle Paul wrote these words in his letter to the Church
of Rome. He said, being justified freely
by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Justified. If you've heard me and many others
say many times, that word means just as if I'd never seen. That's how a child of God stands
before the holy throne of God. Just as if he was perfect, completely
and wholly righteous. That may not mean much to you
if you haven't seen what you are. But if God's shown you what
you are, that ought to thrill your soul. I'm perfect. totally, completely righteous
and holy before a thrice holy God. Redemption in Christ is
free. We're justified freely in Him.
Now we use that word freely to mean something that's given without
money and without price and it most definitely means that. A
man is said to give freely when he bestows his charity on someone
expecting nothing in return. And there are many of you here
today, I know personally, that are very generous people. You freely give, not expecting
anything in return. Most of the time, we as men and
women give to needy people or organizations of those that we
either love or pity or feel that they somehow deserve some help.
But God freely gives and does good to those who deserve death
and wrath. See the difference? If someone
murders another with cold-blooded, deceitful, wicked motives and
intentions, whether it's out of covetousness or hatred or
jealousy, and the judge of that court in whom he stands before
lets him go free, it can be said that they were freely given the
gift of life. But let me tell you where that's
different from God. They're given the gift of life
when they deserve nothing but death by execution. This exoneration,
though freely given by the judge, would not be just. Wouldn't be
just. And justice would not have been
served. Oh, friends, but God freely and
justly loves His people for He gave His only beloved Son to
take the chosen sinner's place. And His wrath and His indignation
for the sin of people who hated Him without a cause was put on
His beloved Son and justice was served. That's why God is both
just and justifier. Christ was made to be sin for
us and God freely gave us His perfect righteousness and therefore
He not only loves us freely, but justly. not compromising
His holy justice at all. God is just and justifier. Without compromising His divine
justice, we read in this verse that His anger is turned away
from us. God's angry with the wicked every
day. His anger is turned away from us if we're found in Christ. Now the reason that most people
don't find much beauty in that is that they never were too worried
about him being angry with them to begin with. But when you see
who he is, you'll shudder and fear that God would be angry
with you. And when you hear that His anger
is turned away from you, you'll be most happy and glad. And the
child of God is. They know what they deserve.
They know what the just recompensive reward is for them. And yet God
says, I'll love them freely and I'll turn my anger, turn my anger
away from them. That's being loved freely. That's
undeserved love. We buy food, clothing, medicine. We pay our utilities to stay
warm when it's cold and cold when it's warm. We spend what
we must to put a roof over our heads and for means of transportation
to get where we need to go. But there's one thing truly needful. The one thing is an absolute
must, and the sad thing is most people don't give it a second
thought. And that is the needful favor
and love of God. It's freely given. Yet human
nature says, well, it can't be free. I must earn it, deserve
it, merit it somehow. Friends, it's free in the sense
that it don't cost you anything, but it costs God His only beloved
Son, His only begotten Son. And I think we, even as believers,
can't really enter into the depths of that. God loved His Son. He
said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. And
yet he delivered him up. He delivered him up. He delivered
him into the hands of wicked men and women who took him and
beat him like an old dog and hung him on a cross and killed
him. And it was by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God that this was done. Do you know why? Because some
of you here today, he loved freely. That's exactly why. Men want
to contribute something so they can glory in what they've contributed.
That's just a fact. That's just the truth of the
matter. That's why Paul said, Who maketh thee to differ from
another? What do you have that you didn't receive? Paraphrasing
1 Corinthians 4. And if you received it, why do
you glory in it? You see, that's what men do.
They want to contribute something so they can glory in it. This
will mean something to you only if God enables you to see that
we most definitely do not deserve God's love. There's nothing,
now listen, there's nothing in man to attract the love of God
to him. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The love of God to man existed
before there was a man. He loved his chosen people before
any one of them had been created. before the world had been made
upon which man dwells. God set His heart upon His beloved
and ordained them unto eternal life in His Son." And if you
tell me that God loved men because He foresaw some good thing in
you, I urge you again, you better read this book. I've had men,
I've had preachers, I mean, men that have been in the ministry
30, 40 years that have looked me straight in the eye and said,
oh yeah, I believe in election. God looked ahead in time and
he foresaw that you were going to love him and choose his son
and he elected you based upon that. That's a lie. If God looked
ahead and foresaw anything in me, it was only evil that he
saw. The love of God existed before there was any good thing
in man. The Bible is perfectly clear that there's none that
doeth good. How many times have we read that? Not now. Not ever. So if you're depending upon some
goodness in you, friends, you better lay that down right now.
In light of man's condition, described plainly in Scripture,
there's never been anything good in any man or any woman that
would cause God's love and favor. This book declares quite certain
that any virtue or goodness which may be in any man or woman is
the result of God's grace. The only thing that's good in
me is Christ. There's nothing good in me but
Him. It's the result of God's grace.
And if it's the result of grace, it cannot be the cause of grace.
An effect of something can never exist before the cause of it.
Let me say that again. An effect of something cannot
exist before the cause of it. The world in which we live, that
we see day in and day out, the universe, the stars throughout
the skies, are seen because they exist. That they exist because
God spoke them into existence. You see, God was the cause of
them existing. The effect is not before the
cause. This was the case with Jacob
and Esau. Jacob was an elect child of God
because God loved him. Being a child of God is the effect
of the cause. God was the cause and Jacob's
salvation was the effect. And that's what's wrong with
religion today. They get those things reversed. They think the effect is the
cause. And the cause is the effect.
Well, I decided to follow Jesus and now I'm Satan. No. You've
got it backwards. God chose you before the foundation
of the world, and the effect is you bowed to Christ and you
believe on Him. Jacob's salvation was the effect
of God electing and loving him freely before he was ever born. It had nothing to do with any
foreseen goodness in him. That's for sure. Because you
see, Jacob, his name even means supplant or deceiver. You know,
he deceitfully obtained his father's blessing and his brother's inheritance
as the firstborn by deception. You remember that story, don't
you? There sure wasn't anything good in him that God would look
ahead and foresee and say, oh, now there's a good boy. I'm going
to elect him. Just the opposite. And Paul makes
that clear to us. Turn with me to Romans 9. This
passage of Scripture is so familiar to all of us, but let's look
at it. Maybe the Lord will really show it to somebody today. Romans
chapter 9, let's just start in verse 11. For the children being
not yet born, now this is talking about Jacob and Esau. Children,
before they were born, neither having done any good or evil,
that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not
of works, but of him, they call it. It was said unto her, their
mother, the elder shall serve the younger. And as it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. And men will say,
well, I don't see how God could hate Esau. And the child of God
says, I don't see how he could love Jacob. I don't know how
God could love me other than in mercy and grace and the Lord
Jesus Christ. There sure wasn't nothing in
me. The God with whom we have to do has the power to make one
lump of clay into a vessel of honor and another into a vessel
of dishonor, and His divine choice is His prerogative. He's the
potter, we're the clay. God told Jeremiah, he said, let's
go down to the potter's house. You've heard this many times,
but he said, let's go down to the potter's house. And he said,
there I will cause thee to hear my words. Friends, if you have
heard the word of God, he's taken you to the potter's house. And
He's shown you this plainly. He's shown you that when you
went down to the potter's house, there you saw the potter and
he was doing a work on his wheel. And the vessel that he made of
clay was marred. Where was it marred? It was marred
in the hand of the potter. So, who made it again? God did. The potter did. He made it again,
another vessel. And it says, it seemed good to
the potter to make it. And then men want to go, well,
that ain't fair. That ain't right. And then the
18th chapter of Jeremiah verse 5 says, Then the word of the
Lord came to me, saying, O house of Israel, now listen, can I
not do with you as this potter, saith the Lord. This is God talking. Behold, as the clay is in the
potter's hand, so are ye in my hand." There's nothing in you
or me, friends, that would attract God's love to us. And we're nothing
but clay in the potter's hand. And I think the Lord Jesus Christ
said it best when He said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven
and in earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent and has revealed them unto babes. And then he
said to Schwartz, Tyler, even so, father, it seemed good in
thy sight. If you're one of God's chosen
sheep this morning, I'm going to tell you something. It's because
it seemed good in His sight. And it's because He loved you
freely. Not because of anything you did.
He loved you freely. God hides and reveals. He loves and He hates. And it
will do none any good to murmur that there's unrighteousness
with God. Paul said in Romans, he said,
here's what you're going to say now. You're going to say, well,
why does he yet find fault? If you're saying none can resist
His will, how can He find fault? For who hath resisted His will?"
And Paul said, No, no, no, no. Better not go there, old man.
Who are you to reply against God? And shall the thing formed
say to him that formed it, Why have you made me like this? Hath the potter Hath the potter
power over the clay? This is the marvelous truth of
God's sovereign election in Christ. And unsaved men and women hate
it. And the child of God loves it. We love it. You know why? Because
we rejoice to know that God has loved us freely. If I can't be
saved, Debbie, by my works or my so-called righteousness, because
I don't have any, I can't be lost because of my unrighteousness. Oh my! I can just wrap myself
all up in that. Not by works of righteousness
that we've done. Paul wrote to Titus. He said,
but according to what? His mercy. He's loved us freely. That's mercy. He saved us by
the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Friends,
God did the washing. God did the renewing. And it's
simply and plainly because He loved us freely. That's grace. We say free grace. That's the only kind of grace
there is. We say sovereign free grace. There's no other kind.
I had a religious man once say to me, I live by the Ten Commandments. The truth of the matter is just
this. We can't keep one of the Ten
Commandments and the fullness of its spirit. The law and commandments
of God will cause a God-loved sinner to cry out, Lord, your
commandment is exceedingly broad. Oh, I see in your holy commandment
my inability to keep. Oh, I've sinned." And they cry,
Lord, your commandment, I can't keep. And yet if any man or woman
should stand on the footing of their own self-righteousness
or their own so-called righteousness or righteous things that they
do, they've got to take the whole ten and the entirety of God's
law and they must keep every one of them perfectly throughout
their whole life. Now you try it. Most of us has
broken God's law sitting here in the last five seconds. Oh,
I tell you, we're so wicked. You must never fail in the slightest
point or else hated of God you'll certainly be. If you desire to
be saved by the law, you must keep it perfectly in every way.
That's what James said in chapter 2, verse 10. He said, for whosoever
shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he's
guilty of the whole law. I don't want to try that route.
I don't want to go that way. I'm doomed to fail. Now listen,
and I'll hurry. The covenant of grace does not
speak that way. It just doesn't. It views men
as guilty. It views men and women as having
no merit. Nothing to earn. Nothing deserved. God says in the covenant of grace,
I will. I will. I will. He doesn't say, if they will,
but I will and they shall. 2 Corinthians 6 saying, I will
dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and what? They shall be my people. I will. They shall. Not if they will
or I hope they will or I'm begging and pleading that they will.
I will and they shall. Who are the objects of God's
love? Well, are they Pharisees? Are they the men who fast twice
in a week and pay tithes on all they possess? No. Are they the
moralists who is touching the law or blameless and those who
walk in the observances of their religion without even a slip?
No, no, no. That's not the object of God's
love. Our Lord said that the publicans and harlots will enter
the kingdom of heaven before they do. Who are they that are
chosen of God? They're the ones to whom Christ
came into the world to save. Now you answer that question,
you answer the other one. Who did Christ come into the
world to save? Let me tell you something faithful. Let me give
you a faithful saying. Let me give you a word that's
worthy of all of our attention and our acceptance. that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners. The Pharisees weren't
sick. The self-righteous moralists
of the world are not sick. And when the scribes and Pharisees
saw Him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto His disciples,
How is it that He eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? Those are the ones that He freely
loved. Those who are sick. Those that
have need. Are you sick? I want you to seriously
ask yourself, are you sick and needy? Are you a helpless sinner? Oh, how I pray that you see you
are. That's who Christ came to save. That's the kind of folks
that God loves freely. Not the well. Not those who think
themselves to be well. Not the righteous, but the sick,
unrighteous ones. Friends, we're plagued and dying
with an incurable disease. And we've spent all that we have,
like that woman with the issue of blood. Boy, I see myself in
her. All those years, I spent all
that I had. to only grow worse. Twelve years
she suffered many things and many physicians. And after she'd
spent all that she had, it says she was nothing bettered. Friend,
I tried church, religion, Sunday school, Royal Rangers I think
they used to call it. Didn't do nothing but make me
proud and arrogant and think I was something special for God.
That's all it did. I spent all that I had, and you
know what happened? I grew worse. I grew worse. Nothing bettered. Oh my, that's
me. But one day that poor woman,
she heard something about a great physician. She'd been to every
doctor in the land. Spent every dime she had. Here
was a physician who could cure her disease. And one day, friends,
I heard about the great physician. A man told me about one that
could heal me of my disease. I've been to every one of his.
I was shut up to one thing only. He's my only hope. If he can't
help me, nobody can. And her faith, was exhibited
in her profession. For she said these words, and
they're the same words that you as a believer once said. She said, if I could just touch
his clothes, if I could just grab the helm of his garment,
I shall be whole. You see, this physician loved
her freely. He came to heal and to save folks
like her. She didn't have anything to pay.
She didn't spend it all. She had nothing to give. She
was broke. She had nothing to offer. She
was totally disabled. But God in Christ loved her freely. And when she touched him, he
stopped and he said, Virtue's gone out of me. He wasn't caught
by surprise. You see, that day was ordained
before the foundation of the world. He knew who touched him. He said, who touched me? They
said, are you kidding me? There's thousands of people around. He knew who touched him. He not
only knew it, he loved her freely. Is that not grace? That was a
price she could afford, wasn't it, Free? That's a price I can
afford. Free? I can afford that. And friends,
at the same time, it's the divine gift that we cannot afford to
do without. Those helpless, sick, and needy
folks like her are the object of those whom God loves freely.
They must have and desire the one thing needful. They must
have God's blessed Son, who was the only one that could do for
them what the holy God required. That's what salvation is. It's substitution. I can't save
myself, and neither can you. And we were never intended to
have to do anything, for God loves His people freely. If God
loves His people freely, He's never expected you to do one
thing, because it would cease to be free. It would cease to
be grace. It would cease to be unmerited.
It would cease to be undeserved. Oh, is that word freely meaning
a little more to you than it did before we started? It is,
man. Freely. Freely. If there's any
fitness necessary in you before God will love you, then He does
not love you freely. And this book's a lie. If there's
anything in you that causes God to love you, then He doesn't
love you freely. You say, Lord, but my heart's
so hard. And He says, I love you freely.
But I don't feel my need of Christ like I wish I did. God says,
I love you freely. I don't feel that softening of
the spirit that I, oh how I wish I could desire, that it seems
like others have. He says, there are no conditions. I love you freely. The covenant
of grace has no conditions whatsoever. God's love is unconditional. We did nothing to get it and
we can do nothing to lose it, as I said earlier. Now listen,
in closing, these are the unconditional, sure mercies of David so that
you, without any fitness, may come and venture upon the promise
of God which was made to you in Christ Jesus when He said,
He that believeth on Him is not condemned. And you can't even
believe on Him unless He loves you freely and causes you to
do so. No fitness is wanted. I love
them freely. Oh, for grace in our hearts to
know that the grace of God is free. It's free to you. It's without preparation. It's
without fitness. It's without money. It's without
price. God's reason for loving chosen men and women is within
Himself. Within Himself. There's no reason
for that love found in you. There's no reason in you for
God to love you. No reason whatsoever other than
freely.