I want to read to you out of
1 John chapter 3 here, verse 16. Verse 16 of 1 John chapter
3. Hereby perceive, or hereby see we the love of God, because
He laid down His life for us. Hereby perceive we the love of
God, because He laid down His life for us. Hearing his love not
that we love God but that he loved us and gave his son to
be a satisfaction for our sins. To open our remarks this morning
I'd like to read to you a story that is a blessed story and it
just did something for my heart and soul And I think that it
will preface our remarks this morning that we'll make here
in this service. And this story is entitled, The
Crippled Beggar. And all of you children listen
carefully. Many, many years ago in the highlands
of Scotland, there lived a wealthy nobleman. He had just one daughter,
loved by all who knew her, and she was as kind as she was beautiful,
and as beautiful as she was kind. When she was 20, her father promised
that he would arrange special celebrations for her 21st birthday,
and among other guests, all the young nobles in Scotland would
visit the castle. But he warned her solemnly on
one point, that there would be many who would wish to marry
her because of her beauty, her wealth, and her personality,
but she must be very, very careful in her choice. All he longed
for was her happiness. The time soon came and everything
was alive with the preparation for the celebrations, and suddenly
a loud knocking was heard at the back door of the castle.
A servant going to investigate found a beggar man on crutches,
and he ordered him away, but no, the beggar said, I must see
her lordship. The door was then slammed in
the beggar's face, but with one of his crutches, he banged loudly
on the door. In the end, the servant returned
and threatened to set the dogs on him. The beggar's reply was
that he was not frightened of dogs, but he would not go away
until he had seen her ladyship. The servant having hastened to
the kennels, the dog set up such a howling that her ladyship sent
a maid to find out the cause. And she returned with the story
of a poor lame beggar who would not go away. Then I will see
him tell him to wait till I come." Followed by a train of servants,
she hurried to the door and addressed the beggar in her usual kind
way, asking what he desired. The beggar bowed and said, I
have come to ask your hand in marriage. The nobleman's daughter
leaned forward and looked carefully into his face. Then stepping
forward, she said, very well, here it is. The beggar approached,
bowed low, took her hand and kissed it and asked, on what
day will you marry me? This day, twelve months hence,
was the reply. The beggar then hobbled away
to the relief of all who were glad to see his back. During
the next days, many young noblemen asked, asked the young lady to
marry them. But to all she gave the same
reply, I am betrothed already. All were bewildered. Who could
the happy man be? Then the astounding story got
around. She had promised to marry the
lame beggar. Everyone was astonished. Could
it really be true? At length her dear father heard
the rumor and he was heartbroken. Father, she said, you can trust
me. I know what I am doing. When
the festivities had ended, there were many disappointed young
noblemen. But especially sad was the loving
father. Again and again he said, oh my
daughter, tell me it's all a mistake. But her answer was always the
same, father. Everything will be all right.
At length the year had rolled away, no preparations had been
made for a wedding, and as the last day came, her father sent
for her. You see, my daughter, there is
no one coming. Oh, but he will come. One o'clock
chimed, and still no appearance of any visitor. But at the two
o'clock, a great noise could be heard coming over the hill
toward the castle. All rushed to the windows and
there was a procession of pipers and drummers and horsemen. Right up to the front door of
the castle came a guard of prancing horsemen lining both sides of
the road. Wheeling around, they drew up
each horse facing the other and forming a guard of honor. Last
of all came a most beautiful steed with a noble rider on its
back, the king's son. dismounting he ran toward his
beloved and took her into his arms I knew you would come she
said when I looked into your eyes I knew you were the king's
son this story was told by a preacher many years ago in Aberdeen Scotland
and he applied this story in this sense Christ being in the
world as a beggarman, unknown and unwanted, despised and rejected
of men, but those who by faith are able to receive Him as the
King's Son will one day see Him crowned with glory and honor
and will be eternally received by Him as His beloved Bride. It was said that through this
one sermon that this man preached that there were over 600 souls
that were set to seeking after the king's son. I do hope this
morning that this will set the preface for our remarks on this
tremendous verse of scripture that we find here in 1 John chapter
3 and verse 16, hereby we see the love of God. Would you like
to see the love of God? My friend, if you want to see
God's love, is there any of you here this morning that say, well,
I think I have an eye for it. I think I am ready to see the
love of God. I desire to see it. I want to
see it. It's in my soul to see the love
of Almighty God. Preacher, could it be shown to
my heart today? Well, we take note here that
he said, here's the way we see the love of God. We see it through
the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God manifested in flesh,
a God who laid aside that robe of heavenly glory, laid it aside
and took upon himself a veil of our inferior clay. took upon
Himself our nature and took upon Himself our very flesh. And as He come into this world,
the Lord Jesus Christ condescended to come down here and to lay
down His life, to lay down His life for us. And so the love
of God is seen in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ laid down. Now, beloved, what this tells
me is that actions speak louder than words. You see, the Lord
Jesus could have sent from heaven and said, God could have said
from heaven, he said, tell everybody, tell my people I love them. Tell
them that I love them. But you see, the Lord said, well,
it won't be enough to give them the word, the love word. That
won't be enough. It's necessary that I, with my
actions, prove and show my love for my loved ones. Now you see,
many, many people are interested in only the words. Oh, I love
you. I love you. Oh, I love my children. Oh, I love my parents. Oh, I
love. They're interested in the love
word. You see, beloved, without action,
love, the love word means absolutely, totally nothing. And you may
be enthralled with it, you may be thrilled with it, but let
me tell you something, unless there's some action behind the
word, it means nothing. And the action speaks much louder
than the words. And I've heard it all my life,
I love you, I love you, and then the actions speak just the contrary
to that. And I would like for you to see
this morning that our God did indeed love His people and He
said, I want you to see that love and the way I'm going to
show you that love is my Son's coming down there and He's going
to come to sin and He's going to take upon Himself not the
nature of angels but the seed of Abraham and he is going to
die, lay down his life, and suffer the hell and their judgment in
their room and stead in place. You're going to see it! And that's
the kind of love I like to look at. I like to look at the kind
of love that you can see visibly, where there is a manifestation
of action, where there's something that declares that love unmistakably
to your heart. True love, let me say this, true
love must express itself. Now if there is, if love is not
true, it's not necessary. All you have to do is just say,
I love you. That's all you have to do. But
true love will express itself. It always does. And you just
don't have to, you don't have to wonder about, is there an
expression of love from that individual. Is there expression
of love from God? Absolutely. He sent his son. God so loved that he sent his
son. He sent his son in order to lay
down his life, in order to die, that whosoever would be enabled
And those whosoevers are those who will, those whosoever wills
of the Bible. Not whosoever won't, but the
whosoever wills of the Bible. They will believe on Him and
be saved. Now He asked us to believe in
His love. And in order for us to enable
us to believe in His love, He gave us many proofs. of his love
and I like that so much you know it's so difficult when somebody
when somebody begs you and pleads with you to believe in their
love they want you to believe that they love you but there
is no proof of their love. There's no indication that they
love you. There isn't anything about their
lives or anything about the way they conduct themselves that
indicates that they love you. But the Lord Jesus Christ asked
us to believe in his love and then he gave us proofs of his
love. He laid down his life. Isn't that what he said? Because
here it says he laid down his life for us. And that's the proof
of his love. Now, beloved, when somebody would
condescend as Jesus did and come into this world and lay down
his life then I think that that's proof that he loves his people,
and I think you can trust that love. Anyone that would die for
you, and I've heard people say, well, I'd give my right arm for
you. Well, that's one thing, and that's very important. I've
heard mothers say, well, now I'd give my life for my children. And I've heard fathers say maybe
the same. But I will tell you this, beloved,
and a man may say, well, I'll give my life for my country.
I'll do that. Well, that's wonderful. But this
man, the Lord Jesus Christ, he came into this world and he laid
aside everything. All of that, He laid aside even
that relationship that He had with the Father in that that
He knew what it involved in coming in and condescending and becoming
a man and then going to the cross. He knew that it would involve
for a time a cessation of His relationship to the Father when
He became identified with our sin. And whenever he would be
made to cry out on the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? He knew what it was going to
involve, but he gave us the proof of his love. Now, then let me
say this, let me just say some things about this. There can
be no greater proof of love than for a person to lay down his
life for the object of that love. There can't be any greater proof.
How are you going to have any greater proof than that? Now
Lord Jesus Christ has proved his love to sinners then by dying
for them. Now let me just say that Jesus
needed not to die at all. I want to explain that if I can.
The scripture says that over him death had no power. Meaning that when he came into
this world, he was without sin. And if you're without sin, then
death has no power over you. It's only because man sinned
that death has a claim on him. And death had no claim on the
Lord Jesus Christ. There was nothing about him that
demanded that he give up the ghost. that he die a physical
death. There was no sin in his bloodstream. He did not partake of the nature
of Adam. He was born, the Bible says,
of the seed of the woman, and his father was the Holy Ghost. Is that alright? I think that's
exactly what the Word of God teaches, and there was no sin
in him, therefore death had no claim on him. And it's not like
one of us, you see. We're all going to die anyway.
And we can say, well, I'll lay down my life for you. Well, that's
all right. It may just be a year or two
ahead of the final demise. It may just be a little bit beforehand,
but you see Jesus, there was no claim on him. Death had no
hold on him and had no claim on him. He would have never had
to expire physically at all because he was God and there was no sin
in him. There was no claim upon him on
the part of those for whom he died. Now, none of us could have
demanded his death, could we? We could not have demanded his
death. Say, you must die for me. We had no claim on him. None
whatsoever. And there was no appeal whatever
made to him to die from man. Adam did not send out and say,
I'm going to send an ambassador out to see if we can't find a
savior, see if we can't find somebody to come and to die for
us. We've sinned, we've fallen in
sin, and we've brought death upon ourselves. Now I want to
send out someone and we want a Savior. We don't hear him crying
to God, provide us with a Savior. We don't see anybody seeking
the Savior. The Lord Jesus was unasked for. He was undesired. And he was
unsought for by sinful man. Now you get the picture here.
The Lord Jesus Christ was unasked for, undesired, and unsought
for, but he came. He came because the Father had
a purpose. He had an eternal purpose. He
came because there was a people. The father would have a family,
the Holy Spirit would have a temple, and Christ would have a bride.
And so the father sent the son. There was no appeal made by those
for whom he would die. Now isn't that amazing? Isn't
that amazing? I think that shows you somewhat
of the love of God. My soul, you would think that
Adam, from the day he fell, he'd be trying to figure a way out.
of that situation. Oh, I know that he finally skinned
animals and made him some clothes out of them, and I know he finally
covered himself with the fig leaves and so on and so forth,
but there's no indication that he sought soberly a savior, a
deliverer, a messiah, somebody, a mediator between him and God
Almighty. There's no indication of that.
Another thing that the Lord Jesus knew is that he would get no
love in return from those whom he would die for unless, hear
me now, unless he created that love in them. Is that a true
statement? I tell you it is a very true
statement. Jesus knew he would get no love
for those that he died for unless He would save them, regenerate
them, and put a principle of love in their hearts that would
cause them to love Him in return. Now that's exactly our state
and our situation, and that's the case as I stated to you here
this morning. And so you see how wonderful
the King's love is toward his people. And you see the manifestation
of it in the Lord Jesus coming down here unasked for, undesired,
unsought. And he come in and all of his
glory is veiled because he has a body of flesh. And here he
is in the world and nobody's going to love him. He's going
to die, but nobody's going to love him in return. There's not
going to be any bride. There's not going to be any love
coming forth from the bride until he creates it in them. And this
is a marvelous, magnificent picture. And beloved, this he has done.
We're told in the fourth chapter here in verse 19, that verse
of scripture that all of you know and every one of you could
quote it, we love Him because He first loved us. And He had
to create love in our hearts before it could return to Him.
And so He did so. We love Him because He first
loved us. Oh, if we could just feel the
power of that in our souls this morning, I believe we'd come
back wouldn't we to our first love, that sweetheart love we
had for the Lord Jesus Christ when we first come to know Him? And wouldn't it be marvelous?
Oh, I thought about this story and I couldn't get it off my
mind. All night long, every time I woke up, I thought about this
story. And what must have been going
on in that young lady's mind all through the year as she was
waiting, waiting for the king's son. You see, she looked into
his face. She saw what she wanted there,
what she needed. She saw it. And as she dwelled
on that for all of the year, how she must have felt. and how
it must have created in her such a overwhelming. She was ready
to marry the king's son immediately upon his arrival. She was ready.
Ready. Now, our Lord died by the hands
of men and as well as for the sake of men. That in dying for
us, he was taking upon himself this shame that we've talked
about and this dishonor And this all happened when he became intimate,
when he had this intimate connection with sin. 2 Corinthians 5 and
21 says that he was made to be sin for us. He was numbered, Isaiah 53 says,
with the transgressors. He was numbered. He was included
in the number of the transgressor. Well, have we been unable to
see the love of God? Have we been unable to see it
this morning? Jesus laying down His life for us. It is impossible
for a person to know that he is loved without feeling some
obligation of love in return. I really feel that. I feel that
true love toward one individual will draw out something out of
that individual toward the individual doing the loving. In Psalm 31,
turn back there if you will, Psalm chapter 31, and in verse
23, it says, O love the Lord, all ye his saints, For the Lord
preserveth the faithful and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer. O love
the Lord, all ye his saints. Love the Lord as you cannot love
anything or anyone else. Love the Lord is the emphasis,
L-O-V-E, love with capital letters, love the Lord. Now, think if
you will, and I know that it's already dawned on you or you
thought of it a little bit, the excellency of the character of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the one that we're bidden to love. You
know, God is such a perfect being that I must love Him and I think
this is a true statement that we ought to love Him apart from
all, I say apart from all that He's done if we were right. Wouldn't
we love the Lord Jesus Christ, apart from everything that He's
done, wouldn't we do that if we were right? Well, of course
we did not do that, because we were not right. We were sinners,
and we were born of woman, our nature was fallen, and so we
did not. But to emphasize the excellency
of His character, everything that has breath, or to love God
and love Christ. And then the great goodness of
God. God is love. He's full of goodness as the
sun is full of light. God is good. Christ is good. He's good. And He's as full of
grace as the ocean is full of water. Christ is full of grace. Now think of His providence to
you especially. Now I could speak for myself,
I can't speak for you, but I can speak to you something about
the manifestations of God and the love of Christ to my own
soul. And I could tell you about that
manifestation. I could tell you the melting
power of the love of our Lord Jesus Christ in my own soul,
how it melts the heart and how it warms the heart. and how it
teaches us many, many things. One of the things that the love
of God, I really feel, you know the scripture says that the love
of God is spread abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that
is given to us. I think that every child of God
has the love of God impressed upon their hearts. They feel
God's love and of course testimony of scriptures we've given you
this morning would help one to understand what it is the Spirit
of God is showing and manifesting and revealing in the heart. But
I never heard of anyone who came to die that ever regretted knowing
the Lord Jesus Christ and loving the Lord Jesus Christ. My friend,
this is one of the effects of the love of God. It will enable
you to die easy. You love Christ? Christ loved
you and you love Him because He loved you. When you come to
die, it'll make your death much easier. If you live and never
know this, the King's Son, if you live and never have anticipated
your wedding day, like this lady for the whole year waiting for
the king's son to come. She knew he was coming. She believed
it. And she assured her father, he's
coming, he's coming. No question about it. Now listen
to me. There was no indication or no
sign of it. She believed it. There was no
sign of it until she heard that procession coming over the hill
to be married to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm sure that you'll
never regret, never regret having believed the gospel message. Now, moreover, love to God is
the way, whatever anybody says in this world, there is nothing
that will keep an individual as clean as love to God. Now, people like to have somebody
spell out and set out rules and regulations and various do's
and don'ts. And we were talking about this
the other day, some of us. that a lot of people if they
could put a quarter in a machine every morning and that machine
would just spit out orders for them and what they should do
and shouldn't do for that day they'd carry their pockets full
of quarters and they'd make sure they never lacked one they'd
always have it because they want that information they'd like
to know what to do and what not to do every day but my friend
let me tell you this that the love of God in the heart the
love of God in the heart True love for God in the heart, true
love for God in the soul will keep you cleaner than anything
else. It will cause you to do what
will please the one that you love. It will cause you to do
that. And see that works from within toward the out. It's not
something that goes from the out in, it's inside and it works
out. Now, our lives may not always
be approved of by people around us and by people of the world.
Or maybe a lot of people think, well, I ain't nothing to them
people. But God weighs the spirits of men and God looks upon the
heart. And God knows what there's love
in the heart of his people. And I'll tell you this, that
I know for a fact that the love of God will drive out sin out
of your life where nothing else will drive it out. Nothing else. Where written laws and rules
and regulations will never drive it out. Your love for your daddy
and your mother will cause you to live better than anything
else in this world. people will, your teachers say,
well you mind your daddy and your mother, and your grandpa
will say you mind your daddy and your mother, but the thing
that'll make you mind them more than anything else is for you
to love them, Benjamin. Am I telling you the truth? If
you love your folks, you will do what they ask you to do and
what they tell you to do, out of love, out of love for them.
And I'm telling you all, if you love your parents, you'll do
that. If you love Christ, then you'll mind him, you'll obey
the Lord. Now, I believe that's very important
for us to see that. Now, love to God will also strengthen
you in the time of trial. If you love the Lord Jesus, and
the Scripture said there, we read it out of the Psalm, chapter
31, verse 23, O love the Lord, all ye his saints. If you love
the Lord, it'll strengthen you in the time of trial. It'll bear
anything from the Lord's hand. If you know that God loves you,
you know if that's settled, if you've got that settled, God
does love me, there's no question. He loves me and the way I know
He loves me is He laid down His life for me. That's the way I
see it. That's the way I see the love of God. Then I can bear
what He sends to my life and to my soul. Love to God will
also strengthen you for service. A man strong in the Lord spiritually
He's strong in the Lord just as he in proportion loves God
as he loves Christ. That's just as strong as he is.
He's no stronger than that. And love in a man's soul will
never allow him to say, I just can't do that. I just can't. I can't do what I'm called upon
to do, whatever God lays on my heart. Just can't do it. If you
love God, you're going to do it. If you love the Lord, you
will do it. If you love Christ, you'll do it. You'll do it out
of love to Him. Whatever. And love in your soul
won't allow you to say, well, I just won't do it. I can't do
it. I won't do it. You'll say, well,
I may fail in my effort, but I will do it. I'll try. I'll
do what I can. I'll put out the effort. And
then also, I think that to love the Lord, is the most ennobling
thing that a person could possibly do in this world. To love the
Lord is an ennobling thing. Do you think the holy angels
love God? I think they do. I think they
do. And I'd like to imitate them.
Holy angels love God. They do. And then also, do glorified
saints above Do you think they love God? Those who have already
gone ahead and those who have already, the path has already
turned to gold that we've sung about here this morning. Our
path will turn to gold. Those who are already on the
golden part of the path and already over in glory, safe inside the
Jasper walls. That's also mentioned in that
last song that we sang. Do you believe that? Do you believe
that? Well, I do. I think they love God up there.
And you know if I intend to go and if I intend to be and if
I intend to sell over there then I think the most ennobling thing
I could do in this life is just begin now to glorify God by loving
Him and love Him and I think that would be the most ennobling
thing I could do. And then I'd like to say this
too and use this as an example in closing is Our Lord Jesus
Christ does. He loves God. Christ loves God. And the reason that he laid down
his life was out of love to the Father. And out of love for the
purpose of the triune God. No way in the world you could
have turned Jesus back. And that's why he cried in the
garden as he did and prayed, nevertheless not my will thine
be done. Whatever it takes, whatever is
involved, I'm ready. I'm ready. Thy will be done.
The scripture says that the Lord had prepared him a body and he
said, I come to do thy will, Lord. I come to do thy will,
O God. That's what I come to do. And
that was love that moved him to do that. love that moved him
to do that. And Christ loves the Father.
He loves the Father. Now if he does, and he's my example,
and I want to imitate him, then I love God. I love God. Well,
I hope this morning these remarks, like I told you, I just kind
of, this is a 15 minute sermon in preparation. And you just
have to bear with me. I believe it was of the Lord.
I really do. I believe it was of the Lord.
And I think the Lord will use it in somebody's heart here this
morning. And it was a blessing to me.
I got a lot of good out of it. But I'll, like a fellow said
that comes to church and he, the preacher, and he looked around
his pockets and looked everywhere and he couldn't find his notes
and said, well, He said, we'll just have to trust the Lord this
morning. He said, next Sunday I'll come better prepared. No,
I'll never be any better prepared than I am when God helps me.
If He's helped me, then you've been helped. And I hope there
was some unction here. Father, in the name of our Lord
Jesus, we love Thee and we pray that a blessing may rest upon
Your people as they love You in return. And I do pray that
we may, each one of us, perceive your love through the life of
Jesus laid down. Thank you for that death on Calvary
that secured our eternal rest. And we ask now that you'll receive
the praise of our hearts, and we joy in thee, and we thank
you again for the great gift, that unspeakable gift of your
love to us. In Jesus' name, amen.