It is my prayer and my heart's
desire that you may know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. that you may know the height
and depth and length and breadth of the love of Christ and be
filled with all the fullness of God. I wanna talk to you this
evening about that love which cannot be purchased. My text
is the Song of Solomon chapter eight and verse seven. unpurchasable love. Our text says many waters cannot
quench love, neither can the floods drown it. And then this
statement is made. If a man would give all the substance
of his house for love, give everything you've got, everything you've
got for love, it would be utterly contemned, utterly despised. Now that's a general truth that
may be applied to every form of true love. You simply can't
purchase love. It can't be bought and it can't
be sold. True love is free spontaneous
and always faithful. I'm not talking about the silly,
sentimental passions that men speak of, emotions that people
talk of when they speak of love. That's bought and sold at a very
cheap price. It's as fickle as water. But
love, true love, That love which is the commitment of one's being
to its object. That love which causes people
to devote themselves regardless of cost to one another. That
love is self-denying, self-sacrificing, and devoted. That love which
is more interested in its object than in itself, now that's true
love. And it can't be purchased and
it can't be sold. Love, this kind of love, it's
stronger than death. Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it. It's free and it's faithful. It can't be bought. and it can't
be destroyed. It just can't be. And I said,
well, I don't love him anymore, I don't love her anymore, because
you never did. It's because you never did. That's just reality.
That's just reality. True love can't be bought. And
true love can't be sold. It cannot be destroyed. Let me
see if I can illustrate it for you in practical, everyday ways. The love of a husband or a wife
The real love of a husband or a wife can't be purchased and
can't be destroyed. Every young man, young woman
who is wise will lay this fact to heart. You can't buy the love
of a man and you can't buy the love of a woman. It can't be
done. Many homes would be far, far happier if there were a tithe
as much love as there is wealth in them. It takes more than money,
reputation, social standing, and luxury to build a home. I
recall my dear friend, Brother Harry Graham, from whom I've
learned so much. You've heard me mention him many times. He
used to earn his living as a construction worker. He built houses and sold
them, built two or three a year. And I used to make comments.
We'd be driving along, I'd say, that's a nice home. He said,
Don, you need to learn something. He said, four walls and a roof
will never make a home, that's just a house, that's just a house. And our homes are homes when
they are built on love, nothing else, nothing else. I recall
when Doug came over to ask for a face hand in marriage, I didn't
want to make it too easy on him, you know, but I didn't want him
to be too nervous either. He came and was prepared to show
me what he was able to do for her financially and physically
and all those things. And he started to open things
up. I said, now, Doug, I'm just not interested in what you have
or don't have or may ever have. It's irrelevant to me. It's totally
irrelevant to me. I want one thing from you. I
want you to love my daughter. And I want you to lead her in
the worship of God. Nothing else matters. Nothing
else matters. Now preacher, don't you want
your daughter to have more than you've had? If it's best for
her soul, I do. If it's best for her soul. If
it's best for her soul to have far less, let her have far less. You understand what I'm saying?
It doesn't take money to build a home. It takes love, commitment,
devotion. Who could purchase the love of
a mother? She loves her own child especially because the child
is hers. She watches over her baby with
great care. She denies herself sleep at night
if her baby's sick. She'd be ready quickly to part
with her own life at just a moment's notice for that child. any mother
who loves her child would. You bring her another woman's
child and endow her with great wealth and say, this is what
I'll give you if you will transfer your love for your child to this
child. And the other woman's child may be, to an eye that's
unprejudiced by love, much more appealing. It may be much more
attractive to the eye that's unprejudiced by love. It may
appear to be the perfection of what a mother would want in a
child, but she cannot, for any price, transfer her love from
that child that's the fruit of her womb to this child that belongs
to another. Love can't be purchased. It just can't be. Love of friends,
the real love of friends is without price. Now this is a message in itself.
You listen carefully. You're going to find yourself
to have very few friends in this world. I mean real friends. And friendship can't be purchased.
It can't be bartered. It's not something that you find
that you can get this if you do that. Oh, no. The love of
friends is like the love of Jonathan and David for one another. So
great that these two men entered into a covenant with one another
with nothing to appeal to one another except themselves. David
didn't buy Jonathan's love and Jonathan didn't buy David's.
No price could purchase their heart's affection for one another.
It may or may not be true, every man has his price. But I'm gonna
tell you that love has no price. If a man would give all the substance
of his house, even for human love, the love of a husband or
a wife, the love of a mother for a child, the love of a friend
for a friend, even for that, the price would be utterly despised.
But our text speaks of infinitely higher love than this. All that
I've said about love preeminently is true when we come to think
about the love of Christ for us. And even when we think about
our love for him, that love which springs up in the heart, born
of his spirit, when the love of God is shed abroad in our
hearts and we're made to know the love of God in Christ for
us. Neither the love of Christ for us nor the love of our hearts
for him can be purchased. If a man should offer to give
all the substance of his house for either, it would be utterly
contemned, utterly despised. Now let me show you three or
four things that are true with regard to this statement. First,
I want you to begin at the highest point, the original source of
love. And I want to remind you one more time that the love of
our Lord Jesus Christ is not for sale. You can't buy it. You can't buy it. Our Savior
is no mercenary. He does not auction His love
and His grace to the highest bidder. It would be profane,
monstrous blasphemy to suppose that the love of His heart could
somehow be bought by gold or silver or any earthly thing that
we might give Him. If anything could enrage the
heart of the eternal God, I'm sure it would be the attempts
of men to purchase his love and the favors of his love by something
they do. And yet the pride and stupidity
of man is so great that all men by nature dare to presume that
the love of God's for sale. They dare to presume that somehow
they can, by something we do for or give to God, win his love
for us. Now Paul very plainly tells us
that those preachers who are peddlers of law and self-righteousness,
who preach up works for salvation as the basis of man's acceptance
with God, are nothing but prostitutes. He tells us in Philippians chapter
3 verse 2, these fellows are called dogs. And that's not talking
about four-legged dogs. That's talking about the kind
of dogs described back in Deuteronomy when he says that you don't bring
the price of a dog into the house of God. It's talking about prostitutes,
male prostitutes. Those who would tell you the
love of God can be won by something you give God or something you
do for God have prostituted the gospel and the glory of God.
So a preacher, you act like you don't have any respect for them.
I've got less than that. I hold them in utter contempt.
My friends the love of Christ simply isn't for sale You stop
and think about this turn over to Psalm 50 Psalm 50. What do
you suppose? You might give to God to buy
his love Now just just what do you think you're gonna give God
to cause him to give you his love? Look in Psalm 50 verse
7 The psalmist here tells us that God has need of nothing.
Everything in all the vast universe belongs to Him. He says, Hear,
O my people, and I will speak. O Israel, I will testify against
you. I'm God. I'm God. I'm not some peanut. I'm not
some man. I'm not some politician. I'm
God. I'm God. Even your God. I will not reprove
you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings to have been
continually before me. I will take no bullock out of
your house nor he goats out of your folds. For every beast of
the forest is mine and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know
all the fowls of the mountains and the wild beasts of the field
are mine. Now look at verse 12. If I were
hungry, if I should happen to get hungry, if I were hungry,
I wouldn't tell you. For the world is mine and the
fullness thereof. Now this is what he says, Bob,
I don't need you. I don't need anything you've
got to offer. You can't bribe God Almighty. You can't purchase
His love. You can't purchase His favors.
There's nothing which God conceives in His infinite mind that He
could not fashion by the might of His will, much less the power
of His arm. There's nothing His heart could
desire that He couldn't command to appear before Him. What do
you suppose you might do for Christ? to win his love. What proud, proud worms we are
to think that by giving anything or doing anything, we can win
the love of the infinite God. In doing so, we fulfill the word
of God who said, you thought that I was altogether like yourselves.
Because our love's for sale. That's the way with man. What
we call love, it's auctioned off to the highest bidder. Just
read the newspapers. Just watch what goes on around
you. God is not like us. His love
is not for sale. His favors can't be purchased.
God can't be bribed. If the love of Christ could be
won by us, by something that we might give him, or something
we might do for him, then it must be concluded. Now stop and
think for a moment. If somehow Ron Wood could say
or do or give something that would win anything from the heart
of Christ, then what you have given, what you have done, what
you have performed, must then be equal in merit to the worth
of his love. Wow. Well that wipes out this notion
that somehow God's going to treat you a little better if you do
a little more. That just wipes out this notion that somehow
God's going to, He's got a special place reserved for you if you
give special things to Him. The silver and gold which we
so highly value and treasure, that silver and gold for which
men are willing to sell their souls and their consciences is
no more to the Son of God than the gravel out here in this parking
lot. I love what Augustus Toplady said about this. He said, Christ
loved money so little that he had only one thief and he made
him the purse bearer. And it wasn't by accident. You
try to find comfort for your soul in your works and your gifts. And most people do. My God, most
people do. What's your comfort? What makes
you think you have peace with God? Nothing will give your soul any
peace. Nothing will give rest to your conscience. Nothing will
satisfy the demands of your own heart. short of the free grace
of God. When you come at the last hour,
when you start to draw your last breath and you're about to go
out and face God in eternity, what you have done, be it ever
so noble and ever so great, will not quieten your own conscience. And if it won't satisfy you,
Gary, you can beg on it. It won't satisfy God. It won't
satisfy Him. If it won't give you peace in
the time of pain and comfort in the time of this depression
and satisfaction in the hour of death, it sure won't satisfy
God. No emotion we've ever felt in
our most sanctified moments. No holy desire we've ever had
that has passed through our hearts in our most hallowed times of
worship. No heavenly longing in our souls, begotten in our
souls even by God's spirit, is worthy that we should dare bring
it before God Almighty and say, now this, this is worthy of your
love. This, this God is worthy of you
looking on me in favor. You see, the fact is everything
we have belongs to Christ already. Everything. Everything. Us older men, I've joined the
old men's club now, I'm a grandpa, we talk about those grandbabies.
That grandchild too, belongs to him. Everything. That darling wife, she belongs
to him. She's not mine, I've just got
her on temporary loan, that's all. She belongs to Him. And
if I say that about those dearest to me, my soul, what's sitting
up there in the bank, don't even count. What property I might
have, I don't care if I've got a thousand acres, it doesn't
matter anything. It belongs to Him. More than that, not only
is it true that everything we possess is His, everything, David
Coleman, we can possibly do for God, everything. Are you listening
to me? Everything we can do for him,
it is our obligation already to do for him. When we've done
everything we can, every servant of his will say, we have just
done profitable servants. We haven't done half what we
should have. And yet, though we could never purchase the love
of Christ by any price, His love is ours in infinite fullness. Oh, hear me, children of God. The Son of God loves us. If you trust Jesus Christ, the
Lord, If you trust the Son of God, if as a empty-handed, naked,
helpless, bankrupt, hell-bent, hell-deserving sinner, you cast
yourself on Him as your only Lord, your only Redeemer, your
only righteousness, I'm here to tell you, all the fullness
of the love of His heart is yours now and forever. The love of
Christ is mine. It's mine. He says, I will love
them freely. And he does. Love them freely. You know what that means? I'll
love them without any cause. We're justified freely without
any cause by his grace. Our Lord Jesus Christ is that
one who was condemned without a cause, hated without a cause. There was no cause in him for
his execution by the hands of men who hated him. And there
is no cause in Bobby Estes why he should love you, but love
you he does. Listen. He declares that his
love for us is an eternal love. He said, I have loved you with
an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn
you. He declares that his love for us is a free sovereign love. He says, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated. There are multitudes in this
world who are Esau's, who are not the objects of God's love.
And there are countless untold multitudes in this world who
are Jacob's chosen of God as the objects of his love. And
if you're numbered among them, it's because God loved you. That's
all. His love is saving love. I'm more than a little sick of
listening to folks, especially folks who sort of say they, you
know, they fence straddlers, they want to ride both sides
of the fence. They recognize this book teaches something about
God's sovereignty and they're scared to death to deny that,
but they don't want to get over here where folks will look at
them as oddballs. And they say, well, we know God loves his people
in a special way, but you know, he loves everybody, sort of.
What kind of love is sort of love? That's nonsense. God loves saving land. Jesus
Christ loves his people sacrificially so that those who are loved of
him are chosen by him, redeemed by him, called by him, kept by
him in his immutable love. He says, I am the Lord. Therefore,
you sons of Jacob, objects of my love are not consumed. And
this love arises purely from within himself. The source, spring,
and cause of our Savior's love is His own holy being, is the
greatest marvel in the world to me. This unpurchasable love,
eternal, unending love. Can I use language like this
and use it in absolute reference? This love which floods the heart
of the incomprehensible, infinite God forever. This love by which
God Almighty does everything is mine. I'm loved of God. Oh, that means everything's all
right. Everything's all right. God Almighty
loves me. He loved me and gave himself
for me. Perhaps you are sitting there
thinking to yourself, Pastor, oh, I wish I could have that
love of Christ shed abroad in my heart. Oh, Pastor, I'd give, I'd do
anything if I could know the love of Christ. That's your problem. That's your problem. I'm sure
you would. If I could convince you, if I
could convince you that by going through, enduring, or sacrificing
anything up to hell itself, would win for you the love of Christ,
you'd start out for it. I don't have any question about
that. Because your works, religion, is just the nature of man. But
you can't buy it. You can't buy it. Well, pastor,
how can you have this love? It's free. Have you been listening
to me? It's free! Free! Free! Free! How do you get it? Believe on
the Son of God. Just receive it. That's all. Receiving him, you receive his
love. Now, having said that, let me make two or three statements
quickly. The believer's love for Christ is a love that's free
as well. It was not purchased by all our
Lord's gifts. and sacrifices for us. It is
true, as John said, we love him because he first loved us. The
Lord's love for us is the cause of our love for him and we are
grateful for the many, many gifts of his love for us. But the true
believer doesn't love Christ because of what he gets from
him. I think perhaps one of the greatest
problems in this day is that people seek things from Christ
rather than seeking Christ himself. Oh, I love his election, his
redemption, his grace. I love his forgiveness, his pardon,
his preserving me in his hands. I love all those things he does
for me. But Satan's accusations aren't
true. You remember what he said about Job? Remember what he said,
Merle? Satan dared to come up to the
throne of God himself, said, the reason he loves you is because
of what he gets from you. The reason he loves you is because
of what he gets from you. And he says the same thing about
you and me. And the Lord God says, all right,
I'll show you. You go take everything I've given
him, everything I've given him. We'll see if he still loves me.
The believer doesn't love Christ because of what he gets from
him. He loves him because Christ has been revealed in him. They
shall look on me and looking on him, knowing him, seeing the
glory of God in him. Our hearts are ravished by him
and one to him. All right, here's the third thing.
It should go without saying, but I realize it doesn't go without
saying. Our Lord Jesus, Mary Chris, will
never accept anything short of love. It is accepted, the scripture
tells us, Because God loves a cheerful giver, that we give according
to what we have, and that we give first ourselves to him.
He doesn't accept anything we give him, except we give it from
a heart of love. He doesn't accept anything we
do for Him, except it be done from a heart of love. He will
not have any sacrifice, no matter how great that sacrifice impresses
men, except it rises from a heart of love for Him. That's all. Until you give Christ the love
of your heart, You're not his. He says, my son, give me your
heart, and he won't have less. Unless love for Christ is the
motive and principle of our worship, our service, and our sacrifices
to him, he'll never accept them. And I want to tell you this,
love is a better motive than law always. Love always does more. It always
gives more. It always produces more. Love
is devotion. Love withholds nothing. Love gives everything. It just does. The law requires
a tithe. And love says, well, I don't
have to tithe. No, no, no, that's not the attitude of love. Love
says, here, I'll give. Law requires one day in seven.
Love says, I don't have to keep one day in seven. No, no, no,
that's not the attitude. Love says, my life is. You see
what I'm saying? Folks say, well, you got to preach
law or folks will live like hell. Preach law and they'll sure enough
live like hell. Just go to any country in the world and any
time in history where men are held under the religious constraints
of legal religion and you'll find the most vile, reprehensible
conduct imaginable. Well, how do you promote then
devotion? Love. The love of Christ constrains
us. Now, here's a point of examination.
With these questions, I searched and tried my own heart and continue
to do so. I call on you to do the same. Would I do more for Christ than
I am now doing if I thought it had any bearing on my eternal
salvation? Would my worship, devotion, and
faithfulness to Christ be more sincere if I felt that my eternal
salvation depended on it? Would I give more to Christ of
my time, my talents, or my money? If I thought that by doing so
I would gain either greater riches in this world or greater reward
in heaven, or if I were convinced that God would punish me if I
didn't. Now it's not love for Christ
that brings salvation, faith alone does that. But I'm telling
you that where there is faith in Christ, there's love for Christ. If any man love not the Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be damned, is the language of scripture.
The Lord's coming. One last thing. The love of God's
elect for Christ can never be purchased at any price. Now I've known a lot of Esau's
in my day. and if I live another day or
two, I'll know a few more, who willingly, quickly have sold
their birthright for a mess of this world's beings and have
sold their souls to destruction. But Esau's have never known the
love of Christ. Those who truly love Christ will
not sell their love for him at any price, not even at the price
of life itself. If a man would give all the substance
of his house for love, it would be utterly contempt. By this test, we will prove what
we are. True love can't be purchased,
just can't be purchased. Amen. Let me read a hymn, and then
I'll have Lindsay lead us in one. This will help prepare us
for the Lord's Table. Maybe Judy or David will sing
this sometime. It's found in Spurgeon's hymnal. It's written
by Philip Doddridge. Written 250 years ago. Do not I love thee, O my Lord, Behold my heart and see, and
turn each odious idol out that dares to rival thee. Do not I love thee from my soul? Then let me nothing love. Dead
be my heart to every joy when Jesus cannot move. Is not thy
name melodious still to mine attentive ear? Doth not each
pulse with pleasure bound my Savior's voice to hear? Hast
thou a lamb in all thy flock I would disdain to feed? Hast
thou a foe before whose face I fear thy calls to plead? Would
not my ardent spirit vie with angels round the throne to execute
thy sacred will and make thy glory known? Would not my heart
pour forth its blood in honor of thy name and challenge the
cold hand of death to damp the immortal flame? Thou knowest
I love thee, dearest Lord. Oh, I long to soar far from the
sphere of mortal joys and learn to love thee more. Amen.