Some time ago, I had a very dear
friend, still a very dear friend, whose husband apparently had found someone else in his life. He was willing to make shipwreck
of everything in their household, marriage, children. ministry, everything. And this
dear lady asked me, she said with tears in her eyes, Don,
what can I do? And I thought for a little while
that she asked me, just sat quietly, but I knew it was coming and
I had already given a lot of thought to it. And I said, I
don't know anything on this earth you can do except love Him. Love Him. Love Him. And if that won't hold Him, nothing
will. And I sat preparing this message
today, and last week I kept thinking What will constrain me and you to devote ourselves to Christ? What will cause us to put every
rival to the Son of God out of our hearts? What will cause us to worship Him? be faithful to him, to make whatever
sacrifices necessary for his glory, for the interest of his
kingdom, to do his will. And the answer is just this,
the love of Christ constraineth us. If the love of God, revealed,
experienced, and known in Jesus Christ, does not motivate us, compel us, constrain us to devote
ourselves to Him, then all our religion and all
our devotion and all our outward exercises in religion and worship
and what men look at and call godliness is but a vain show. So tonight I want to talk to
you, O Spirit of God, speak to our hearts about the love of
God, God's everlasting love for his elect. You see, God's everlasting
love for his elect, now listen carefully, is the fountain of
all grace. and the reason for everything
he does. It's the reason for everything
he does, no exception. Let's turn back to John chapter
17, verses 23 and 24. In verse 23, our Savior declares
in his great high priestly prayer, "...I in them, and thou in me,
that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may
know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me." What
a pillow for our aching heads, what comfort for our broken hearts,
what a glorious theme for our medication, what a cause for
adoration, love, and praise. God, our Father, loves us as
He loves His Son. Now listen to what it says in
verse 24. I will that they also whom thou
hast given me, those you gave me in covenant love and grace,
those you gave me to redeem and save, those you have given me
by the marvelous work of your grace and regeneration, I will
that they also be with me where I am." He's in glory and soon
will join us. that they may behold my glory." I don't have any idea what that
means. I just don't know. His glory. It has something to do with the
glory of His person. and that glory being revealed
in the great, marvelous work of his grace in saving our souls
by the sacrifice of himself to his everlasting praise. But it
is his will, and his Father will grant him his will. It is his
will, and because he's God, he will have his will, that every
sinner given him before the world began be with him in glory and
behold his glory, the glory which thou hast given me." Now watch
this, "...for thou lovest me before the foundation of the
world." Let's put two sentences together, or part of it out of
verse 23, part of it out of verse 24. "...thou hast loved them
as thou hast loved me." for thou lovest me before the foundation
of the world." And this is what he says, Father, you have loved
them with an everlasting love. John Giel said God's everlasting,
unchangeable, invariable love to his elect through every state
and condition into which they come. God's everlasting, unchangeable,
invariable love to his elect, through every state and condition
into which they come, is written as with a sunbeam in Holy Scripture."
This book, someone said, this is God's love letter to his people.
That's a pretty good description. It is written as with a sunbeam
in Holy Scripture. Now, again, I'm in water well
over my head. But let me just try to give you
five simple, clearly revealed facts concerning God's everlasting
love for us. First, the Scripture speaks clearly
of the eternality of God's love for us. God's love for us did
not begin yesterday. It is not something that is born
in time. His love for us does not begin
with our love for him. John said we love him because
he first loved us. God's love for us, rather, springs
from eternity. It is the ground of divine predestination. It is the cause of divine election. It is the source of divine redemption
by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is that which is revealed
to us by the calling of God the Holy Spirit in the new birth.
Turn to Jeremiah chapter 31. We'll look at some very familiar
scripture. Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 3. The prophet Jeremiah
here records how the Lord God spoke to him. He begins in this
chapter in verse 31 to describe God's everlasting covenant of
grace, which He made with us with Christ Jesus before the
world began. But in verse 3, Jeremiah says,
"...the Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have
loved thee with an everlasting love." Now listen to me. If God Almighty appears to you
in grace and mercy. If God Almighty makes himself
known to you in the person of his dear Son, if God Almighty
reveals to you his glory and grace in Jesus Christ the Lord,
he is saying to you, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, therefore, with lovingkindness
have I joined Does he draw you to him? Oh, sweet constraint
of love. Behold, thy time was the time
of love when he passed by you and spoke peace to you, said
to you, live, washed you in the blood of his Son, robed you in
his righteousness. The Father loved us ere we fell
and will forever love. nor shall the powers of earth
and hell his love from Zion move. T'was love that made him ordained,
a surety just and good, and on his heart inscribed the name
of all for whom he stood. Nor is the surety short of love.
He loves beyond degree no less than love divine could move the
Lord to die for me. And oh, what love the Spirit
shows when Jesus he reveals to men oppressed with sin and woes,
and all their sorrows heals. I have loved thee with everlasting
love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." God's acts
and works of grace. Those acts and works of grace
performed for us before the world began arise from and are demonstrations
of this everlasting love of his. Election was the first act of
God's eternal love. Listen to this. You can quote
it, I'm sure, but listen. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. according as he hath
chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before him." Listen now,
in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will.
What is it that moves God? that moved the eternal triune
God to predestinate you and me to be His sons. Nothing in us,
nothing we could do, nothing that would be formed in us, oh
no! But rather His love. In love
He predestinated us unto the adoption of children. Because
He loved us, He made a covenant. established upon his own oath
with his own darling Son as our surety, a covenant of love and
grace in which he said, I will be their God and they shall be
my people, a covenant called the everlasting covenant, a covenant
sealed with the blood of his own darling Son, the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. And having made a covenant with
us, with his Son, the Lord God put us in the hands of his brother
and son. Our Lord Jesus throughout this
17th chapter of John speaks of us as a people the Father has
given him. He gave us to the Son as a surety,
trusting Christ the surety to redeem and save his own. He gave
us to the Son as a man might give his sheep to the hands of
a faithful shepherd, and so we were trusted as the sheep into
the hands of Christ our shepherd. He gave us to his Son as the
objects of his love, as our covenant head and representative, so that
we might live through him by whose merit and blood and righteousness
we are made to stand before God wholly, unblameable and unreprovable
forever. Now then, God's love then is
eternal. Not only is it eternal, but it
is also immutable. I know we've got this down doctrinally. Our God doesn't change. Oh, Spirit
of God, teach me His love doesn't change, no matter what. People these days talk foolishly
about unconditional love among men. It just ain't there. There's
never been a human being who loved unconditionally, never,
except for God's man. But God's love for us is unconditional
love. Unconditional. Unconditional. I mean by that that there is
no possibility of change in our God. God's love does not change. It cannot be taken from us, and
it cannot be destroyed, neither by us nor by hell itself. Our God simply does not love
today and hate tomorrow. His love is immutable. And I
stress this. God's love, like all his gifts
bestowed upon men, is without repentance. He will never cease
his own to cherish. Those who are loved of God have
been loved of God from everlasting, and shall be loved of God to
everlasting. His love is everlasting both
ways. He will not depart from the objects
of his love, nor cease to do them good. He cannot change. Turn to Jeremiah 32. If you are familiar with Malachi
3.6, I am the Lord, I change not, therefore your sons of Jacob
are not consumed. Our God is that one from whom
all good gifts come, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning." Here in Jeremiah 32, the Lord God is continuing
to speak of that same covenant of grace that He began speaking
of in verse 31. Here in verse 32, this is what
He says concerning His people. They shall be my people, and
I will be their God. Because God said, They shall
be my people, and I will be their God. He says, And I will give
them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for
the good of them and of their children after them. Verse 40.
And I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Listen now,
that, that. I'm making this covenant, and
this is what I mean by this covenant. I will make an everlasting covenant
with them. that I will not turn away from them to do them good. Read on. But I'll put my fear
in their hearts that they shall not depart from me. God's people will not depart
from him, because God won't let us go. Because he will not depart from
us to do us good. The salvation of God's elect,
you see, does not stand upon the precarious ground of time,
but upon the immutable foundation of his everlasting love. Thank
God that's so. We change often, but our God
changes not. Our love is sometimes hot and
sometimes cold. His love is invariably the same.
God graciously and wisely changes the dispensations of his providence
toward us. He sometimes hides His face from
us. He sometimes chastens us because
of our sin, but His love never changes. The hiding of His face
from us for a season is but to draw out our hearts to Him. So
He knocks and causes us to run after Him. He turns and causes
us to seek Him. But He hides His face from us
only because He loves us and would make us to know that His
love is in us. just as he did with his servant
Peter when Peter had fallen. He chastens us because he loves
us, because he loves us, even when we sin against him. I wrote down here, as we often
do, what a teeny way to express that, as we constantly do. as we constantly do, God's love
doesn't change us. No changes can attend Jehovah's
love. Won't happen. Won't happen. Surely you mean to qualify that
some way. I leave you to understand just
how determined I am not to qualify it in any way. His love doesn't
change, ever. Now, this is the thing I want
us to get hold of. God's love toward us is everlasting and
never changes to any degree for any reason. having loved his
own which were in the world, he loved them to the end. Turn back to Psalm 89. When I was in Bible college,
we had a class interpreting Old Testament scriptures, and one
section of the course of study was called the Messianic Psalm.
And there was just one problem with that. They went through
and picked out certain Psalms and said these were Messianic.
The fact is, all the Psalms are Messianic, all of them. They
all speak of Christ. They speak of the believer, yes,
they are written from the experience of a believing man. But the Psalms
were written intentionally by divine inspiration with reference
to our Lord Jesus Christ. And certainly Psalm 89 is no
exception. Here our Lord Jesus is referred
to, as he often is in the scriptures, by the name of David. But the
one spoken of here is one far greater than the man David. Look
at verse 19. Then thou spakest in vision to
thy Holy One, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty.
I have exalted one chosen out of the people. I have found David
my servant. Read it, I have found Christ
my servant. He is God's Holy One. He is the one who is mighty. He is that one chosen out of
the people. With my Holy Spirit have I anointed
him, with whom my hand shall be established, mine arm also
shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not exact upon
him, nor the son of wickedness afflict him. That is, all of
hell is not going to hurt him. And I will beat down his foes
before his face and plague them that hate him," verse 24. and my mercy shall be with him,
and in my name shall his horn be exalted. I will set his hand
also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers. He shall
cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Also I will make him my firstborn."
I told you he was talking about Christ. My firstborn, I'll make
him higher than the kings of the earth. Now watch this, my
mercy will I keep for him. My mercy will I keep for him,
for his sake, as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven him. My mercy
will I keep for him, read on, forevermore. And my covenant
shall stand fast with him, his seed also. will I make to endure
forever. And his throne is the days of
heaven, if his children forsake my law and walk not after my judgments,
if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments. My God, we confess our sin. Then will I visit their transgression
with the rod and their iniquity with stripes." Now then, underscore
this next word just as many times as you can between lines. Nevertheless. Nevertheless, my lovingkindness
will I not utterly take from them. That's not what it says,
is it? My lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him.
If he takes it from them, he's got to first take it from him,
and he won't take it from him. My lovingkindness will I not
utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail? My covenant
will I not break, nor alter the thing that's gone out of my lips?
Once have I sworn in my holiness that I will not lie to Christ.
His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before
me. It shall be established forever
as the moon, as a faithful witness in heaven." Now stop and roll
that over in your heart for a long time. God will never cease his
own to cherish. eternal, immutable, is giving. Giving. Giving. We know so little about love.
What I'm about to say, most people will have to think about for
a long time. I hope you don't. Love doesn't
demand. Love demands nothing. Love asks nothing. Love gives. Love demands nothing. Love requires
nothing. Love asks nothing. Love gives. That solved about all our problems
if we learned to love like that, wouldn't it? Demands are selfish. Requirements
are selfish. But I walk what makes me feel
good. That's got nothing to do with
love. That's selfishness, covetousness, envy. Love gives. Oh, how God must love us. For where he gave himself to
us. God Almighty, before ever the
world was, looked on this man and said, I will be his God. And having declared such, he
has given himself in the totality of his being, in the totality
of his power, in the totality of his greatness, in the totality
of his infinite love, he has given himself to be. So lift my eyes to heaven and
say, my father, my father. He's given his son. Hereby perceive we the love of
God, John writes, because he laid down his life for us. I
recall years ago hearing Brother Mahan tell a story when he returned
from a series of meetings. I don't know the people. He was
having dinner at home one night, and there was a young lady there
who spoke about her father who was deceased, and spoke of him
with such great esteem and affection. And Henry asked her, he said,
You've spoken so admiringly, so lovingly of your daddy. And
I know he's been dead for a long time. I've got to ask why. She
said, oh Brother Mahan, when I was just a little girl, four
years old, maybe she said five, somewhere in there. My dad was
very sick, he had a very weak heart, and the doctors had warned
him repeatedly that he simply could not endure any physical
strain of any kind. And we were at the beach, and
I was playing one day, and I got out in the water too deep, and
I was about to drown, and my daddy saw me. And without regard
to himself, he dove into the waters. got me and brought me
to shore, and when he laid me down on the shore, he dropped
dead. I love him because my daddy died for me." Hereby perceive
we the love of God, because he laid down his life. And he's given his spirit to
us, because he loves us. I will come to you, and I will
be gracious to you, and I will blot out your sins. As a thick
cloud, I will blot out your iniquities. Why? Because I'm the Lord, your
God. Indeed, all that God does in
time are will do to all eternity. is only the telling of his people
how much he loves them, from everlasting to everlasting, in
every event, in every deed, in every circumstance, just God
telling us of his love. And let me spend a little time
about this. with regard to the love of God,
it is distinctive. It is distinctive. I mean by
that that it is utter nonsense to talk about God Almighty loving
all men in any sense of the word. I hear preachers a lot reading their works, particularly
in this day when the men who claim to believe free grace are
trying their best to make the gospel of God's grace palatable
to unbelieving rebels. There is a sense in which God
loves everybody. If there is, then God's love
is meaningless. They say, but God loves everyone because they
are his creatures. He loves all men with a love
of benevolence. And they would have you to find
some comfort in the idea that somehow God loves you like he
loves trees and toads. And if you can get some comfort
out of that, go ahead if you can. But that's not the way God loves
his people. God loves his own distinctively. I emphasize this because if it
were not for that fact, If it were true that God loves those
men who are guilty and perish at last under hell, he loves
them with the same love with which he loves his own, whom
he has made righteous, whom he brings into glory, then those
men are guilty of horrible crimes declaring such a thing. They
make the love of God to be changeable. God loves everybody. Some go
to hell and God ceases to love them and he pours out his wrath
on them. A changeable God is of less use than a changeable
man. And we are lindsey but fickle,
changeable things, not our God. To suggest that God loves those
who perish like he loves those who are saved by his grace is
to say in reality God's love is meaningless. God's love really
doesn't make any distinction at all. God's love really has
no value. God's love really doesn't accomplish
anything. And thereby, they would destroy the greatest motive there
is in this world for godliness, devotion, consecration to Christ. I'll tell you what, you fellas,
you try telling your wife that you love all women alike and
see if that inspires her devotion to you. The Word of God tells us plainly,
in the plainest terms possible, that God's love for his elect
is special, sovereign, distinctive, distinguishing love. Let's look
at one familiar passage in Isaiah 43. I don't want to spend too
much time here, but I want you to see this. He says, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated. Here in Isaiah 43, the Lord gives
a word of encouragement, encouraging our faith, encouraging our steadfastness,
encouraging us to steadfastly follow him, encouraging our comfort
by believing him. Listen to how he speaks, Isaiah
43, verse 1. But now thus saith the Lord that
created thee, O Jacob, he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not. Fear not. Don't be afraid. Don't
be afraid. For I have redeemed thee, I have
called thee by thy name, and thou art mine. When thou passest
through the waters, I will be with thee. Through the rivers
they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. How can we be sure of this? For I am the Lord thy
God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. I gave Egypt for
thy ransom, Ethiopia and Sheba for thee. Since thou wast precious
in my sight, thou hast been honorable." Look at this, fear not. I have
loved thee, therefore will I give men for thee and people for thy
life. No need for you to be afraid.
Whatever sacrifice is necessary for your good, I'll make it.
I will give men for you. and people for your life. Fear
not, I am with thee, I will bring thy seed from the east and gather
thee from the west." God loves his people distinctively and
he loves them delightfully. I want so much to chew my words
with care. God smiles. God smiles on us perpetually. Sometimes he appears to frown,
but behind the frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. It's high time that we Lay aside all attempts to divide
the love of God into categories, stages, and degrees. Those things do nothing to help
men, and they obscure the glory and grandeur of our God. If He
loves me, He delights in me. If He doesn't delight in me,
He doesn't love me. Again, try telling your wife,
Honey, I really do love you. And I wish you well. I want nothing
but the very best for you, and I'm willing to do anything I
can for you, but you really don't please me much. I really don't
have any delight in you. I'm really not ravished by you. Go on and tell her, see if you've
got a wife tomorrow. Our God loves us as he loves
his darling son. You know what he says concerning
his son? My delight is with him. His delights were with him who
is wisdom before the world began, and his delights are with us
in him. This is my beloved son in whom,
not with whom I am well pleased, he is well pleased with us. The
Lord could not choose a word that was more strong, more forceful,
more powerful, full of meaning than this word delight. It means
that he loves us with an intimate, sweet, ravishing pleasure. my heart." I couldn't imagine such a thing,
if he hadn't said it. How can that be? Oh, there, Chris,
he sees us in his Son. He beholds us only as we really
are. only as we really are, for we
really are what he declares us to be, one with his darling son. And one more thing. God's love
is effectual. Those who are loved of shall be saved by God. One of the reasons we never tell
men and women outside Christ that God loves them is because
to declare such is to declare that God's love is meaningless.
Well, what can be wrong with telling people God loves them?
This book never says to anybody apart from Christ that God loves
them. You have no reason to imagine that God might love you except
you embrace His Son, kiss His Son with faith, except you fall
down before the throne of His Son, bow to His Son, and worship
His Son. The love of God is in Christ,
out of Christ. The wrath of God abides on man. Men need to learn that God's
angry with them. And there's love and mercy and
grace and peace to be found only in Christ. Now let's go back
to John 17. Verse 23, "...I in them, thou
in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the
world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them
as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also..."
Who? "...those you have loved as you
have loved me, that they also whom thou hast given me, be with
me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast
given me. For thou lovest me before the
foundation of the world." Oh, what an amazing, stupendous
revelation of God's love for us. When I think of these things, my heart is compelled to cry,
Oh, my God, how I ought to love you. Let's look at one passage, 1
John chapter 4, verse 19. Has God given you faith in Christ? Has God created something in
you that is in no man by nature? Created love for Christ in your
soul? Oh, preacher, I don't dare talk
about my love for Christ. I commend you for that, and it's
worth talking about. But do you love Him? If so, here's the cause. We love Him. Every believer does. Every believer
does. We love Him. We don't talk about
it. We don't sing about our love
for Him. We don't pat ourselves on the
back for loving Him. But we love Him. We love Him. When I think about this woman's
love for me, I can hardly say the words, I
love her at the same time. But oh my God, when I think of
God's love for me, my love for Him is hardly worth even thinking
of, much less mentioning. But loving, I do. How come? because He first loved us. Amen.