I invite you to turn back in
your Bibles this morning to the Gospel of Saint John, Chapter
8. I want us to deal with a subject
this morning that's been on my heart and one that's been a real
blessing and joy to me to think about, meditate about, study.
And I hope that this will be a challenge to you this morning
and be a blessing to your heart I wanna talk about believers
loving Christ. Believers loving Christ. Believers
are bound to love Christ, they just do. As one old preacher
said, I heard him say it years ago, he said, if you're saved,
I know somebody you love, and that is Jesus Christ. Now the
Lord Jesus is having a conversation with the Pharisees here in John
chapter 8. And they have been quite forceful
in telling the Lord Jesus that they were not born of fornication,
that they had one father, even God. They said, we've been born
of God. And they claimed that Abraham
was their father and that they had the faith of Abraham, the
works of Abraham. But our Lord Jesus said that
If Abraham was your father, why Abraham never sought to kill
me as you have. Abraham was a man who loved God
and loved God's word. But he said to them, if God were
your father, in verse 42, if God truly, really was your father. I mean if you had been born by
the Spirit of God, if God had revealed himself to your heart,
made himself known to you, and if God was truly your Father,
then, he said, you would love me. You would love me. You would
love me. Now this is a statement that
I believe is true in whatever generation men and women live
in this world. If anyone is born of God, if
anyone knows God, if God has been pleased to beget you into
his family, then, beloved, I know that you would love and you do
love the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I proceed forth I came
from God, neither came I of myself, but he sent me into this world. And if you were born of God,
if God were your father, you would love me. Now in Romans
chapter 8 and verse 28, it says, and we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God. To them that love God,
to them that are called according to his purpose. those that are
called according to God's purpose, they love the Lord. God is not
the author of any salvation that does not leave men and women,
boys and girls, in a state where they love the Lord Jesus Christ,
where they love God. Everyone who is saved loves God. Now in 1 Corinthians 16 and 22,
it says that if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let
him be anathema maranatha, let him be cursed, let him be cursed,
Lord Jesus come. Lord Jesus, come. He is under
the curse. If you do not love the Lord Jesus
Christ, you're cursed. You're cursed, and judgment will
come upon you. Now, beloved, this separates
the sheep from the goats. This separates the saved from
the damned. This separates men and women
who have a hope, a true hope, and those who have none. Do you
love the Lord Jesus Christ? If you love not the Lord Jesus
Christ, then you're cursed. You're cursed. And when the Lord
comes, this will become so very, very evident. Because when he
separates the sheep from the goats, you'll be on that side
with these goats, with those goats that will spend eternity
in the lake of fire. In 1 John chapter 4 and verse
19, the Bible says, in a very short verse, but a very powerful
verse, A verse of scripture that I'm sure that most of you have
heard and probably maybe even committed to memory. It says
that we love Him because He first loved us. We love Him because
He first loved us. We love Christ because His love
for us came first. In Jeremiah 31 and verse 3, it
says, The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, Saying, yea,
I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn thee. I've loved you, and this is a
characteristic of my love, is that it's an everlasting love,
and I have shown this love by drawing you. I've shown this
love by bringing you out of your sin unto myself. I have proved
my love by bringing you to rejoice in the full hope of the gospel. Now, beloved, in Romans 9, in
verse 15, it says, I will have compassion on whom I will have
compassion. This is the Lord speaking about
his love. He said, I'll love whom I will,
and whom I will, I'll have compassion on them. If I desire, or if it
is the purpose of my heart, or if my heart is bent in that direction,
my sovereign purpose is to have compassion on a man, I'll have
it. I will have compassion. So we see that God is sovereign
in the exercise of His love. And all that we've said, these
verses that we've read about the love of God toward His people,
We see that God is sovereign, and we see that God has revealed
His love unto His people, and they do love the Lord in return. But God is sovereign in the exercise
of His love. Jacob, have I loved? I think
that's verse 13 of Romans 9. And Esau, have I hated? Jacob
have I loved and Esau have I hated. Now this I know is a very difficult
truth for men and women to receive. It is impossible for a man to
rejoice in this truth of God's sovereignty over his love and
God being sovereign in the dispensing of his love unless God gives
you a heart to do so. You cannot rejoice over the fact
that God loves some and does not love others, and that God
reveals His love to some, does not reveal it to others, and
God calls forth love out of some and does not call it forth out
of others by revealing His love first to their hearts. When I
say that God is sovereign in the exercise of His love, I simply
mean that God loves whom He chooses to love and He does not love
whom He chooses not to love. God does not love Satan. God's reason for love must be
traced back to Himself. Now, you love your wife because
she may have characteristics about her that is lovely. and
your heart may respond to those lovely characteristics, and you
may do so the same with your husband, and our love is caused
maybe by what we see in other people. But that's not so with
God. What God sees in other people,
what God sees in people is not that which draws his love out
of him toward them. God has a purpose and God loves
out of his own heart for reasons known only to himself, his people. And so the love of God must be
traced to the Lord. Example, Jacob and Esau again. God loved Jacob, he hated Esau,
and he said before the children had ever done any good or evil,
have anything to do with them having done good or having done
evil. That was not even considered
in the situation. So the Lord does not look upon
men and say, that individual there is so good that I must
love him. The Lord does not do that. God
has a purpose and a reason for all things that he does. and
his own heart will determine upon whom he sets his affection,
his heart, his favor. Now God loves his own elect personally,
and he loves them with an everlasting love. His love is like himself. It is immutable. It never, it
never changes. We read out of Jeremiah 31 that
God's love is an everlasting love. Now he loved them before
One angel ever loved another angel. He loved him before one
creature could express love toward another creature. God loved his
people. Those whom God loves will never
become an object of his anger, never will become an object of
his wrath or his vengeance. If God loves a man, That man
is blessed, that man is favored of God, and will never be an
object of God's wrath and vengeance. God's love for his elect is persevering. God's love for his people, well,
the Lord loved us before we fell in Adam, and after we fell, the
Lord still loved his people. He loved us before Christ came
to redeem us. He loved us before Christ, in
his mind, in God's mind, became the lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. God, yet, he loved his people
prior to that. Now then, he loved us throughout
the days of our rebellion and unbelief. Now some people have
real difficulty with that. How does God, how can God love
his people through their rebellion, their unbelief, their drunkenness,
their whoredoms, and all those things that make them abominable
in the sight of God? Well, the Lord's love is from
old. It's everlasting love and it
did not start with man. It started with God. It had nothing
to do with what he would do or what he would not do. This is
sovereign election we're talking about. Sovereign love. He loved
us when we hated him. He loved us when we hated Him.
Is that true? Well, absolutely it's the truth.
He loved us before we were regenerated by the power of the Spirit and
were made to love Him. He loved us before that. That's
what that verse means. We love Him because He first
loved us. It means that God loved us when
we did not love Him. Now while we were yet sinners,
the Bible says God has committed his love toward us in that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And so the death of Christ
on our behalf was an expression of the love of God toward his
people. And though we sin against him,
Continually, and we still do. There ain't anybody in this room
that does not sin. If you breathe, you do sin. All of us sin. Well, He loves
us still. He loves us still. When we're
unfaithful, still He abides faithful because He cannot deny Himself. God will be faithful to his people. He will never cease to love his
own. Now based on the history of God's
love for us that we have given you, now in this short time this
morning, I come to ask this question, why do I love him in return? And I do, God has fixed it so
that we love the Lord Jesus Christ. Well why, really, when we spell
it out, when we come to examine our hearts, Why do we love Christ? What are the reasons we could
give? If somebody walked up to you
this morning on the street and say, are you a lover of the Lord
Jesus Christ? What would you say? What would
you say? What would there be? Would there
be anything in your heart? I mean, would you have a full
heart? Would you be able to express
it? Well, I want to try, if I can, to help you a little bit with
this so that you'll be able to do so. And it'd be a wonderful
thing, it'd be a precious thing if you would be able to express
why it is that you love the Lord. Well, the first reason that I
want to give you as to why I love the Lord is because, number one,
He took my case when nobody else would. He took my case and he's
going to see it through to the end. Now, I believe in election. You all know that I believe in
it. And I believe there was a time when the Lord Jesus Christ stepped
forward and said to the Father, I will take the case of every
one of those that you've chosen, you give them to me, I'll take
their case, I'll take their situation, and I will see their case through
unto eternity. I will stand as their representative. I will stand between you and
them. Anything that they're guilty
of, I will assume their guiltiness and I will answer to your strict
justice on their behalf. I'll take their case. Now, beloved,
it is so wonderful to know that one has stood up for us. to know
that one said, I will stand for that individual. I will stand
for that soul. I'll stand for that soul. I am
the one. You charge to me all their infractions
of the law. You lay their guilt on me. And
I will suffer the penalty of their sin. Just like a man, when
he marries a woman, he assumes her debts. He assumes her obligation. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
took upon Himself the obligation of His church, the obligation
of His bride, He assumed all of her obligation. And He was
charged with her sin and her infractions, and He paid the
debt of their sin. So He stepped in for us. when
nobody else would have done so. Somebody said, well, you know
that if the case would have been more hopeful, maybe there would
have been others that would have been interested. I don't know
what you're talking about. But beloved, I do know this,
that the case was hopeless. from our standpoint, from our
standpoint. And the only way that the Lord
Jesus Christ, the only way he could see as he thought upon
the condition of these that he was to assume responsibility
for was what he could do for them. what he was able to do
for them. What he was able, what he was
able before God to produce in them. And of course we knew that
the purpose of God and we know that the purpose of God was to
conform all of his people unto the image of Christ. And so the
Lord Jesus with that in mind The Bible says that he shall
see the travail of his soul and he will be satisfied He took
our case and said I'm gonna do something with those people and
he's gonna fix us up So according to Ephesians 1 and 4 that would
be holy without blame before the Father in love and that we're
going to be we're going to be spotless he's gonna take away
every spot and that we're going to be holy we are holy in Christ
and as we stand before God. Philippians 1.6 says that he
that hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the
day of Jesus Christ. He's on our case, he took our
case, and he'll finish it. And so I'd like to stand before
the men and women of this generation and tell them that you may not
have any, you may not have any confidence in me whatsoever,
you may not believe I'm going to heaven, You may not believe
that I'm gonna stand before God in garments not my own, in perfect
white garments. You may doubt all you want to,
but Jesus Christ is my surety. He's my representative. He said
whatever he owes, I will pay. He has paid my debt, the debt
of sin, and he took my case, and I don't have any doubt. but
what the purpose of God will be done in my life and in the
life of all of those that Jesus Christ represents. He is our
federal representative. So you see, your salvation, your
being saved to all eternity, it depends upon another. And
you can look at yourself all you want to and get discouraged
and get down in the dumps and get down to where you hardly
have any confidence at all. But beloved, you need to keep
looking away to Jesus who took your case and he will not fail
nor be discouraged. He will save his people unto
eternity. And then when I think about him
having taken my case, you know, back in old time, I think also
of the deeds of his love, the deeds of his love. Other words,
the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world He was sent of God. He told these Jews here, He said,
I proceed forth, I came from God, neither came I of myself,
but He sent me. God sent me into the world. Well, when the Lord Jesus came
into the world, the Father gave Him a work to do. He came into
this world with a work to do. He said, I've come to do thy
will, O God. I've come to do your will. I've
come and I've got something I must do. And the Bible says in the
book of 1 John chapter 4, in verse 10, it says, herein is
love. Not that we love God. Here in
His love, not that we love God, but that God loved us. And He
gave His Son to be a satisfaction for our sin. So the Lord Jesus,
He died in our place in 1 John 3 and 16. It says, by this we
know the love of God, in that that Jesus Christ, that He came
and that He laid down His life for us. Let me get the reading
of that just exactly as it states it there in 1 John chapter 3
and verse 16. Hereby perceive we the love of
God. Hereby we see the love of God,
because He laid down His life for us. He laid down His life
for us, 1 John 3 and 16. That's how we see the love of
God. In other words, He loved us before
we loved Him, and we see His love, and that draws out our
love toward Him when we see that He laid down His life for us. Now, beloved, to put the word
simply, I love the Lord Jesus Christ because He died for me. I love Him because He suffered
the agonies of the cross. I love Him because He, like that
serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness, was lifted up
on that gory tree outside of Jerusalem and was nailed to that
tree. His blood was shed. And the Lord
Jesus Christ suffered my hell there on that gory tree. I love him because of what he
did. He suffered in my stead, in my place. His death was my
death to sin and he died not because he was a felon but because
I was a felon he suffered not because he was a sinner but because
he was the representative of this sinner is why he died on
that cross and so somebody says why do you love Jesus well I
love him because he stood up and said I'll be treated just
like that old sinner ought to be treated in order that God,
my Father, might treat that sinner like I ought to be treated. That's
exactly why I love the Lord Jesus Christ. The deeds of His love. The deeds of His love. The Bible
says that we're loved not in word only, but indeed in truth. And beloved, the Lord Jesus could
have stayed up in heaven and sent us a love letter, a love
letter, and we could have read it over and over again, but it
wouldn't have saved us. But the Lord Jesus came down
and indeed, indeed, He did that which was necessary to rescue
our souls and to save our souls from eternal judgment. So beloved,
that when you begin to talk to people, tell them, He took my
case, and then He came down. He came down. The Father sent
Him down, and He came here into the world, and He died in my
place. He died for me. Alright, now
the third thing is that I love the Lord Jesus Christ because
of His power. Because of His power. He said
that all power is given to me in heaven and on earth. He said,
I have power over all flesh, that I might give eternal life
to as many as the Father has given to me. Paul said in Romans
1 and 16, he said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the
power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to the
Jew first and also unto the Greek. I praise the dear name of my
Lord Jesus Christ. I love him because of the irresistible
calm, because of effectual grace. I love him because of his power.
Beloved, listen, it takes power to dislodge out of the heart
of a sinner, that heart of stone, and take that heart of stone
out of the sinner and put a heart of flesh in a man's bosom so
he can have something to feel with and so he can begin to have
a motive toward God, where things change, where old things pass
away and all things become new. And Paul said, I preach not with
the wisdom of men's words. He said, I don't want your confidence
to be in man's wisdom, but I want it to be in the power of God.
I want it to be in God's power. He said, Christ is God's power. He's God's power toward his people. And beloved, the only reason
why there's been a miraculous change in the lives of those
that have been saved is due to the power of God. The Bible says
in Psalms 110 and verse 3, it says, Thy people shall be willing
in the day of thy power. Somebody stands up and says,
I've repented. Somebody stands up and says,
there's been a change take place in me. Somebody stands up and
says, I love the Lord Jesus Christ. Somebody stands up and says,
I want everybody to know that my heart is set toward the Lord,
that my heart is fixed on the Lord. You know why all that's
true? Because they've been made willing in the day of His power. It was the power of God that
fixed them up. to where they would give that
kind of a testimony and that kind of a word. And I'll tell
you, sinner, there ain't any hope for you outside of the power
of God, the irresistible grace and power of your Lord Jesus
Christ. But He has power. The Bible says
that power belongeth unto God, and it belongs to Him. It belongs
to Him and I give Him praise whatever there has been that
has taken place in my life from the time that God began to deal
with me unto this present time. If there's been anything that's
ever happened Chalk it up to the power of God because this
sinner was headed for hell. This sinner was bent in that
direction. This sinner would have never
turned around. This sinner had no desire to
turn around. This sinner would never have
looked to God. He would never have repented
and believed if it were not for the power of God. Never would
he have done it. And I say here this morning I
love the Lord Jesus Christ because of His power. He can save. He is mighty to save. He can
save the most wretched sinner on the face of the earth. And
then also I'd like to say that because I love Him because He
is unchanging toward His own. Now this is very important to
me. Because, you know, things, you know, they change with us,
don't they? They do, they change with us. And they're things that
we never thought would ever happen in our lives. And the way we
deal with them, the way we've dealt with them, and all, we've
been, we've just been surprised at how we have been so, so changeable. And how that things have changed
with us through the years. But you know the Bible says that
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And I'm thankful
today to be able to stand here before you and tell you that
even though that I've changed and things happened in my life
I never knew and never believed would ever have happened, that
still He hadn't changed toward me. And that there have been
times when I've been warm and there's times when I've been
cold. There's times when I felt like I was strong in faith and
there's times when I had to pray every minute for enough faith
just to keep on going. And there's times when I've been
ashamed of myself. Times when I've been a little
proud of myself. But I'll tell you what, the Lord
Jesus never has changed toward me. The Bible says that He's
the same yesterday, today, and forever. He'll never change.
And whatever your ups and downs are, whatever you go through,
whatever you feel, and whatever pressures come upon you, and
whatever you must do in this life, just remember, the Lord
Jesus Christ is constant. And we love Him because He is
ever the same. And because whatever our minds,
whatever goes through our minds, and when we wake up, if we're
stable or unstable, we can always look away to the Lord Jesus and
know that Whatever he was yesterday, he is today. Whatever he was
last year, he is this year. And whatever he is now, he's
going to be next year, and we need not fear. I love the Lord
Jesus because he is unchanging toward me. He always remains
the same loving, approachable Savior of mine. And then the
next thing is this. I love him because of his intercession. on my behalf. His intercession
on my behalf. You know I always have appreciated
people praying for me. I always have. I've always been
glad when somebody said, well I'm praying for you. I've had
people tell me they were praying for me that I didn't think they
knew enough about me to know how to pray for me. But yet,
I always was glad when anybody said, I'm praying for you. I
remember you once in a while in prayer. I've always been glad
of that. But beloved, I love the Lord
Jesus because He has prayed for me. He has prayed for me, and
He keeps on remembering. You know, He told old Peter,
He said, Peter, Satan has desired you. Satan has desired you, but
I prayed for you. I prayed for you that your faith
won't fail. So, the Bible teaches that the
Lord Jesus makes intercession for us. Hebrews chapter 7 verse
25 says that He is able to save to the uttermost all that come
unto God by Him seeing that He ever liveth to make intercession
for them. You see, Jesus was that one that
was dead, but now is alive and alive forevermore. And the reason
he's alive is to make intercession for his people. That's one of
the outcomes of the fact that he ever lives, is that he prays
for his people. He prays unto the Father. He
continues to remind the Father of his sacrifice on our behalf,
of his shed blood. He pleads it on our behalf. And he is not going to lose One,
for whom he prays for. He said, I pray. He said, I don't
pray for the world. I pray for those you've given
me out of the world. I'm praying for them. And so
all his elect, he prays for them. In 1 John 2 and 1, he says, if
any man sin, he has an advocate with a father, Jesus Christ the
righteous. We got a lawyer before God, and
he pleads our case. He pleads our case. There ain't
nothing gonna get me past the judgment bar of God, but the
pleading of the Lord Jesus Christ. His intercession, His blood that
was shed for me, His pleading of that blood before the Father.
Now in 1 John 1 verses 7 through 10, it tells us that as He prays
for us, He just keeps on forgiving us. 1 John 1 and 7 says that
the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin.
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth
is not in us. But if we confess our sin, that's
verse 9, if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive
us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we
have not sinned, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But
beloved, the Lord Jesus just keeps on forgiving us. He keeps
on praying for us, keeps on forgiving us. I don't know whether you
felt any need to be forgiven, any need to be forgiven today. But I have, as I come in this
place this morning, I felt keenly the fact that we have many frailties
about us, many infirmities, and many, many things that we just
need daily to be cleansed of in our hearts. And the Lord Jesus
just keeps on making intercession and keeps on forgiving us. That's
why I love Him. I love Him for that reason. And
then also and lastly, I love Him because of what is planned
for me in the future. what he has planned for me. You
know, the Bible says that he will perform all things that
are appointed for us, and whatever has been purpose for us, he's
going to bring it to pass. He's going to perform it. Now
there's some verses that I want us to look at quickly. First
Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 9. If you would look at this
verse with me and listen to it. I believe the Lord has a plan
for us. And I love the Lord Jesus because I'm not going to be in
the fix I'm in right now forever. I'm not going to have to deal
with the very things I deal with day by day forever. This ain't
going to be different one of these days. I tell you it's going
to be different. The Lord has some things and
he's got them all planned. Jesus has got them planned for
us. Look at verse 9 of 1 Corinthians
chapter 2. But as it is written, I hath
not seen nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart
of a man the things which God hath prepared for them that love
him. but God hath revealed them unto
us by His Spirit. The Lord has revealed somewhat
of those things to us by His Spirit, which the eye can't see
and the ear can't hear about really to simulate them into
the system, the spiritual system, but God has revealed them unto
us by His Holy Spirit. There's some things that are
coming. Now if you look at John 14, John
chapter 14, these are some of the most precious verses in the
Bible. And you need to study these verses,
think about them in connection with what the Lord has planned
for us. He said in verse 2, in my father's
house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you, I go to prepare a place for you. I go to prepare a place. You know, the Lord Jesus went
back to glory. He was received up to glory. And he said, I'm
going to prepare a place for you. I love you. You're my people. I've laid down my life for you.
You're my sheep. You love me. I love you. And
we're going to be together for all eternity. I prepared a place. I'm going to prepare a place
for you. I'm going to do that." And he says, and if I go, and
he did go, if I go and prepare a place for you, he said, I'm
going to come again. That's in my future. The Lord
Jesus is going to come again. And you may bury this body, but
just remember when you do, the Lord Jesus said, marvel not at
this, the hour is coming when all that are in the graves are
going to hear my voice. going to hear my voice and they're
going to come forth out of the grave. They're coming up. They're
coming up. They're going to hear my voice
just like they did in regeneration. They're going to hear my voice
one of these days, and the clouds and the dust is going to fog
in the cemeteries, but my people are coming up. I'm coming after
them, and they're going to be raised from the dead. They're
going to be raised up. And he said, I will come again,
and I will receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may
be also. I'm going to come back and get
you, and you're going to be with me for all eternity. Now that's
the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I love him because
he's not going to just leave me in the grave. I love him because
he's just not going to just say, well, when you're dead, you're
going to be dead like a dog. We'd be of all men most miserable
if we knew that that was going to be the end of it. What's all
of this been about? All of this trying to serve God,
walk with God, and do that which God would have us to do, if that's
going to be the end of it. But it's not going to be the
end of it. God has some plans for us. The Lord Jesus is going
to do something with us. I invite you to turn, if you
will, to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 25, and look at verse 34 quickly.
Matthew 25 and verse 34, Then shall the king say unto them
on his right hand, Come ye, blessed of my Father, and inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
The Lord said, I prepared a kingdom, and I prepared that kingdom that's
been prepared from the foundation of the world. And he said, you
come now and inherit that kingdom. Inherit that kingdom. Then turn
with me to Luke, if you will, chapter 12, and look at verse
32. Luke 12 and verse 32. It says,
Fear not, little flock. Fear not, little flock, for it
is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. He's
going to give it to His people. So don't go around being afraid
of what the future holds. We love the Lord Jesus because
He said, fear not. It's the Father's good pleasure
and whatever pleases God, you know that's what's going to happen.
That's right. You know, the Lord Jesus thanked
the Father one time and said, Father, He said, I rejoice because
you've hid these things from the wise and prudent and you've
revealed them unto base, for even so, it seemed good to you.
It seemed good to you to do it that way and so Jesus said don't
be afraid little flock He said it's my father's good pleasure
to give that's grace You have earned it give it Give is grace
always remember that when you read the word give in the Bible
when God's going to give Something that's talking about grace And
so he's going to give you the kingdom. Isn't that wonderful?
Isn't that glorious? Okay, one other passage and we'll
be done. Revelation. Let's turn to chapter 21 and
let me read here verses 1 through 4. I love these verses and they've
meant a lot to me and they'll mean more as we get along down
the road. But when we're talking about
what Jesus is preparing for his people. Then I think we've got
to mention these verses, and I would. I'd open Revelation
21 and I'd read to scoffers and heretics and whoever else would
listen what the Lord Jesus has planned for me. And I saw a new
heaven, new earth. First heaven and the first earth
were passed away. There was no more sea. This is
some of that which has been revealed by the Spirit. John, it wasn't
something he saw with his naked eye, it was in the Spirit on
the Lord's day. He said, and I, John, saw the holy city, New
Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a
bride adorned for a husband. Entered a great voice out of
heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will
dwell with them. They shall be his people, and
God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more
death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more
pain, for the former things are passed away." Isn't that marvelous? That's wonderful. Now, beloved,
make that your own. Make that your own. And I wish
and I hope that if you ever have the opportunity to stand up and
say, somebody says, well, do you love the Lord Jesus? Why
do you love the Lord Jesus? You can just preach this sermon
to them and be wonderful if nobody knew anything else. If you came
in here and somebody said, well, I don't know much to say, but
I know I love the Lord Jesus and I'll tell you why. And they
stand up, somebody would. And then next Sunday somebody
said, well now, I'd like to do the same thing this week. I'd
like to tell why I love the Lord Jesus Christ. Get up and tell
it. Tell it. You'd have revival around
you directly. Folks, his heart would warm. Icicles would melt
in your heart. and be a blessing. Blessing be
given. I was speaking with Sister Halbert, I believe it
was earlier in the week, that I've been thinking about, and
also I was talking to Jonathan and Carl here the other night. But that I was thinking about
a message on why I love the doctrines of grace. Also, this message
on why I love Christ. And I wanted folks to think about
why they love the doctrines of grace. And to sit down and write
down a couple things, three things, four things, as to why they love
the doctrines of grace. Now you can take this subject
this morning, why you love Christ. Write down some things. Write
down what you can. Out of your own heart. You don't
have to copy what I said. At all. Just write them down
out of your own heart. And I'd love to get them. I'd
love for you to bring them. Okay, bring me a copy of it.
Keep a copy for yourself. And I'm going to be preaching
a sermon here one of these days, if God wills. on why I love the
doctrines of grace. And I think it's working and
I think the Lord will give us something. And I hope we do all
love the Lord Jesus more than what we did. Is there anybody
here this morning that has been hiding their light under a bushel? And you say, I know, I believe
the Lord has done something in me and I believe I am saved.
I believe I am. But I've never told anybody about
it. I've never said anything to anybody. Now if that be the
case, we're going to rent a baptistry this afternoon and have a baptismal
service. If that be the case, you ought
to own Christ before men. You ought to stand up and say,
I believe the Lord has saved me, if He has. We're not asking
you if you're lost, if you don't have any. idea about what we're
talking about, we don't ask for you to do that. Only if you know
in your heart the Lord's done a work, and you know the Lord
saved you, that I would encourage you, I would encourage you to
own Christ before men. Not be ashamed of it. Own Him. Mike, would you lead us