The farmer went to bed late,
late in the night. He saw a light on. He came down to the living room. Mr. Hall was standing by the
window, Mr. Lantern lit dimly, just looking
out from the sky. His face was wet with tears. The farmer asked his friend what
his trouble was. Mr. Hall, after a long pause, looked into the eyes of that
man and he said, tell me, do you think it's possible that
I know the Lord? Of course, the farmer was taken
back with it. He didn't hardly know how to
respond and he said, he said, well, of all men that I know,
I would think first of all, that indeed, you know, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the old preacher said, but
I, I seem to have so little assurance, so little confidence. The man looked at him and he
said, I've never heard you talk this way. I hear you preach in
my living room to these few people, but you preach with such power,
such authority, such conviction, and God's used you to preach
to men all over this country and is using your influence around
the world, and you ask me whether or not I think that you know
the Lord? Mr. Hall said, but if there was just
something, if there's just something that I could find some evidence
of real faith in my heart. I'd give anything for it." And
he asked the farmer, he said, what do you suppose is one real
mark, one real evidence, one real clear demonstration of faith
in a man's heart? The farmer paused a while and
he said, pastor, I suppose if the man really loves the Lord
Jesus Christ. And no more than he said it,
the old preacher straightened up, his eyes began to dance,
his face beamed with a smile, and he said, oh my brother, there's
so much I don't know, but I do know I do love you. I do love you. And with that, he went off to
bed. I want you to look here at 1 John chapter 4 and verse
19. Just look at these first three
words for just a few minutes. Here is the confession, the honest,
heartfelt, sincere confession of every true believer. We love
Him. I know we all speak rather easily
and quickly about believing in Him and serving Him and trusting
Him and worshiping Him. I want you to ask yourself this
question. Do I love him? Do I love him? Do I love him? If any man love not the Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be damned. The Lord's coming, what Paul
said. We are not saved by love, we're
saved by faith. But where there's faith, there's
love. Love for the Son of God. Now you know what love is, don't
you? You know what that is. You're sitting there with your
arm around your wife, D.C., you love that woman, don't you? That's
what I want to know, do you love Him? I want you to know, do you
love Him? Do you love the Son of God? All
who are born again by the Spirit of God do with honest and delightful
hearts sing, though we recognize that our love to Him is nothing
really to sing about, yet we do delight to tell Him, my Jesus,
I love Thee, I know Thou art mine. For Thee all the follies
of sin I resign. My gracious Redeemer, my Savior
art Thou. If ever I loved thee, my Jesus,
tis now." This is the distinguishing mark
of God's elect. This is the thing that distinguishes
the people of God from the people of this world. Those who are
born of God love God. Those who are renewed by the
divine spirit love the divine spirit. Those who are redeemed
by the blood of Christ love the Lord Jesus Christ. Wherever there
is true heart faith in Christ, there is also a sincere heart
love for Christ. And as our knowledge of Christ
grows and increases, our love for him grows and increases.
So that the more you know him, the more you love him. The more
you know about him, if it's a heart knowledge, the more you love
him. There have been people I have met in my life that the longer
I knew them, the less I wanted to be around them. The longer
I was around them, the more quickly I wanted to get away from them.
The more I knew about them, the less I cared for their presence. And I'm sure there are people
who look at me that way. But concerning the Lord Jesus
Christ, the more you know him, the more you love him. The more
you know about him, the more you love him. I'm not talking
about theory. I'm not talking about what we
talk about, what we say. I'm talking about reality. The
more you know Christ, the more you love him. The more you know
about him, the more you love him. John Gill said, the larger
the discoveries and applications of the love of God be, the more
does love to him increase and abound. And nothing more animates
and influences our love to God than the consideration of the
earliness of his love to us. In other words, he says, The
more we know of God's love toward us, the more our love toward
God will grow. We love Him. Now that's a fact
if you're a believer. That's a fact. You love Jesus
Christ. That's a pretty good testing
point. That's a pretty good testing point. You can get folks to walk church
aisles, kneel at altars and mourners' benches and say the sinner's
prayer, get baptized, join the church and serve the church and
preach the gospel and serve as deacons and do everything in
the world. You can get folks to do anything,
but only God can create love in the heart of man for himself. Only God can do that. Now in
this text John shows us that all believers love Christ and
that the source and cause of our love to him is his love to
us. John says we love him because
he first loved us. Now the Lord willing this evening
I'm going to preach to you the first part of the message. This
morning I'm going to preach the second part. We love him because
he first loved us. This is the acknowledgment of
love. We love him not because of ourselves,
but we love him because he first loved us. We love him. That's a true statement. We do
not say it presumptuously, arrogantly, or self-righteously. But in all
honesty, we confess that it's so. We love him. We love him. And yet we have nothing to boast
about. no ground of glorying in ourselves. The question is
put to us by the apostle, who maketh thee to differ from another?
What hast thou that thou didst not receive? And with the apostle,
we respond, by the grace of God, I am what I am. We love Christ,
and we do most gladly acknowledge that we love him. We repent and
we weep that our love for him is so cold, so fickle, so unstable,
but we love him! We gladly acknowledge that we
love him because he first loved us. The love we have for Christ
does not arise from within ourselves. We don't love him because of
any superior qualities which we possess above other people.
Our love for Christ arises from and is caused by the grace and
the sovereign love of God for us. This is what John is teaching
us. God loved us before we loved
him and his love for us is the cause of our love for him. Now
this morning I want to show you three things about this love
of God which causes us to love him. First of all, the love of
God for us precedes our love for him. John says we love him
because he first. underscore the word first. He
first loved us. Now be certain you understand
this as a point of doctrine. Multitudes of errors have arisen
because of ignorance in this one point. God loved us before
we loved him. God loved us first. According
to the scriptures, God's love must be first because God's love
for us is an eternal love. Turn back to Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah
chapter 31. We're going to look at some familiar
scriptures. I hope they're not boring scriptures. To my heart
are yours. They're familiar. And I hope
they'll bring a note of joy to our hearts as we look at them.
Jeremiah 31 verse 3, The Lord hath appeared of old
unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee, loved thee with an
everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. Now what the Lord God tells us
is that from eternity he looked upon us with an eye of love.
He looked upon us in Christ. I wish we could get this in our
minds. We try to calculate and figure God out by our own human
reason and we try to think of God in human terms and I guess
that's the only way we can think of him, but you can't get God
fitted into a human bottle. You know, he's just, he's bigger
than that. There never was a time when God
looked upon us out of Christ and then put us in Christ. But
from all eternity, he looked upon us in Christ, loved us in
Christ, chose us in Christ, predestinated us in Christ. All at one time,
it was done. It was done from old eternity. That means it didn't get started.
That means it didn't begin. There wasn't a time when God
began to love us, but he always did. It wasn't something that
was necessary to his being. His love for us is not an attribute
of His. It's not something that He had
to do in order to be God. But His love for us is the eternal
volition, the eternal will, the eternal purpose of God to love
us from all eternity. He loved us in Christ Jesus,
His Son. He must have loved us, therefore,
before we loved Him. That just makes good sense. God
loved us before we had any being. Before ever he said, let there
be light, and there was light. Before he spoke anything into
being, before the angels of God sang his praises, before anything
was made that was made, God's heart was fixed on Wes Roosevelt. Imagine that. As a matter of
fact, Wes, the reason he made all things, because he loved
you, and he loved me. And we ought to try to comprehend
this thing personally in some measure. God loves each of his
own individually, as fully, as eternally, as immutably, as though
there were no one else in all the world to love but you. That's
how he loves us from all eternity. God loved us when we had no desire
to be loved by him, and certainly there was nothing lovely in us
to attract his love. The Lord God loved us before
we ever sought him or trusted him. His love for us preceded
any repentance and faith on our part. And the love of God for
us is entirely free. Entirely free and sovereign.
Now, none of us love like that. We can't comprehend that. I love Bob Potts. I love him. Not because he's so pretty, but
I love him because he's who he is. Because of his character,
because of his attributes, because of all he is, says, and does. But I love him because of many
things in him. Do you see that? There's something
in Bob that attracts my love for him. I love him. I love him
because he's my brother. I love him because he's in Christ.
I love him because he's redeemed. I love him. I love that lady
because of all of those things, and she is pretty to look at.
My love for her was first attracted by her appearance. It was first
attracted by things that I saw in her, both physically and morally. There are things about her that
won my love, that attracted my love, and the more I know her,
the more I love her. But God loved us without any
attraction. without anything, there was everything
in us to repel his love, but nothing to win his love. Nothing
to win his love. He loved us freely of his own
sovereign will and purpose. As a matter of fact, he says
so in Hosea chapter 14. In Hosea the 14th chapter, as
he describes his grace and mercy
toward us in Christ Jesus. The Lord God tells us, I will
heal their backsliding. I will love them freely for mine
anger is turned away from him. I will love them freely. The
scripture tells us in Romans chapter 9, if you want to look
again at this passage concerning Jacob and Esau, In verse 11,
the children being not yet born, neither having done any good
or evil. Jacob hadn't done anything good
and Esau hadn't done anything bad. As a matter of fact, this
was true not only while they were in their mother's womb,
but it was true while they were still in the womb of divine creation. There was nothing good and nothing
bad in the one to win God's favor or in the other to attract God's
anger. But God of his own free will
and sovereign choice, he said to children being not yet born,
neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of
God according to election might stand. Not of works, but of him
that calleth. It was said unto her, the elder
shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have
I loved, but Esau have I hated. I hated Esau as early as I loved
Jacob, and I hated Esau for the same reason as I loved Jacob,
because I willed to do so. That's the doctrine of Romans
chapter 9. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness
with God? God forbid. He says, I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom I will
have compassion. So then it's not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.
Therefore, verse 18, hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy,
and whom he will he hearteneth. Now God's love for his own elect
is a peculiar distinguishing love. God's love is extended
to some men, but not all men. God loves some, but he doesn't
love all. Now listen to me. I'm going to
lay a little stress here on something that's been a concern to me for
some time. Almost all of you are aware that the Southern Baptist
Convention has a 1986 evangelism campaign. It's called Good News
America, God Loves You. Now, I don't want to be a stick
in the mud, but I'm going to be. It ain't so. It ain't so. As a matter of fact, their evangelism
campaign is a satanic delusion that's damning to the souls of
men. I'll show you why. First of all, I want you to see
plainly, God does not love everybody. Turn over to Psalm 5. Psalm 5. God Almighty, nowhere is it written
in the word of God, nowhere is it implied in the word of God,
certainly nowhere is it taught that God in heaven loves everybody. He said he hated Jacob, didn't
he? He said, Jacob or Esau have I hated. God hated Esau. Now there's not any question
about that. The scripture says here in Psalm 5, in verse 5,
the foolish shall not stand in thy sight. Thou hatest all workers
of iniquity. I know, fellows, they say, well,
God loves the sinner but hates his sin. That's not so. He said,
buddy, he hated all workers of iniquity. Look in Psalm 7, verse
11. God judgeth the righteous, and
God is angry with the wicked every day. Every day that you
live upon this earth, God's angry with you. God doesn't love you. You have no reason to suspect
that God loves you. Not the slightest. Not the slightest. Folks talk about this country
as though it's some kind of a Christian nation. Hear those fellows talking
about the debate about South Africa, you know. I'm not getting
into the debate. I'm just telling you they're
fools where they talk. Say it's supposed to be a Christian nation.
Who said so? Said the United States of America
is supposed to be a Christian nation. on earth fooled you? Have you
not had your eyes open? You call this Christianity? This
nation's not a Christian nation. Thank God it's a free nation.
Thank God it's a nation of liberty. Thank God it's a nation of great
prosperity. But it's certainly not Christian.
There's not anything Christian on this earth, Merle, but the
Church of Christ. That's all that's Christian. We ought to
wake up and pay attention to what the Scriptures teach one
of these days and listen to what the Word of God has to say to
us. Let me tell you why I say that this teaching, Good News
America, God loves you. Let me tell you why it is that
this doctrine is damning to the souls of men. To assure rebels
that God loves them is damning for these reasons. Now, any of
you here this morning, men, women, or children, who are not yet
converted by the grace of God. Any of you who do not know the
love and grace of God in Christ, any of you who don't trust Christ,
who don't love Christ, let me tell you, you've got no reason
to be suspicious that maybe God loves you. Not one of you. Not
one of you. Now listen to me. Here's the
reason I say so. It's damning to the souls of
men to tell sinners, rebels against God that God loves them. Because
if God loves me, He's not angry with me. He's not angry with
me. Do you see that? If God loves
me, he's not upset with me. He's got nothing to quarrel with
me, not if he loves me. If God loves me, he will never
allow anything that's really bad to happen to me. Now is that
true or isn't it? I happen to love my daughter. Love her dearly. And there are
times when I will allow her to go through some hardships and
difficulties. That's good for her. She'll tell
you there are times when I put her through some hardships and
difficulties. That's good for her. But I'd never allow anything
really harmful to happen to her. Never. Never. I love her. Now if God Almighty in heaven
above loves me, I'm confident that he will never allow anything
evil to happen to me. I'm going somewhere. If God loves
me, then I have nothing to fear from him. Nothing whatever. That's what's being taught in
this generation. Everybody's told, God loves you. God has
a wonderful plan for your life. Good news, America. God loves
you. Bad news, America. God hates
you. That's the way it is. That's
the way it is. If he loves you, if he loves
you, what you got to fear? What you got to be afraid of?
If God loves me, He'll never send me to hell. Now that's the
reasoning of this age, isn't it? Is that not what you hear
on these talk shows? Is that not what you hear as
the result, as the philosophical result of this message? God loves
you, God loves you, God loves you. Folks say, well God loves
me, He won't send me to hell. God of love wouldn't send anybody
to hell. If God loves you, you can bank on it. He won't send
you to hell. No, sir. Not if He loves you. If God loves
me as I am in rebellion to Him, if God loves me as I am in unbelief,
if God loves me as I am in my wickedness and in my sin with
no representative, with no substitute, if God loves me, then I know
this, there's no reason for me to repent. No reason. No reason for me to turn from
myself and serve the living God. No reason for me to turn from
my iniquity to righteousness. No reason for me to turn from
my idols to God. No reason for me to turn from
my heart being set upon this world. My heart being set upon
Christ, if God loves me while I cling to my sin and cling to
this world and live in rebellion to him, why on earth should I
repent? Do you see what I'm saying? Do
you understand that way? It's a damning doctrine to say
to rebels, God loves you. I say that God loves a particular
I rejoice to declare to you that God loves sinners. He does. But
no sinner has any reason to suspect that God might possibly love
him until he trusts Christ. Because God loves sinners only
in Christ and only for Christ's sake. He only loves sinners in
Christ. Until you believe, you're under
the just anger and wrath of Almighty God. Turn over to John chapter
3, John the third chapter, verse 18. He that believeth on Christ is
not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because
he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
You're not a child of mercy, you're a child of wrath if you
don't believe. You're not under the love of God, but under the
wrath of God if you don't believe. You're condemned already. The
very same wrath that the souls of the damned in hell today experience
abides on you if you don't believe. Look at verse 36. He that believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. The wrath of God abideth on him. So silly to talk to men about
God's love for them while they live in rebellion against him.
Have bumper stickers on the car. Honk if you love Jesus and smile,
God loves you. Can't you picture Noah? and his
family floating over the horizon with a big banner hanging on
the back of that ark while those multitudes are damned, coming
up for their last breath and they see that sign, smile, God
loves you. He's got a strange way of showing it. He's got a
strange way of showing it. Our Sodom, he snatched out of
Gomorrah and he's on his way to Zohar and he shouts back to
the Sodomites, smile, God loves you. or he looks back to his
perishing wife and he says, well, honey, it's okay. God loves you. He's got a wonderful plan for
your life. That's absurd. It's silly. It's not only absurd
and silly, it's damning. For men perish with the confidence
that God loves them while they live in rebellion to God Almighty. Now that's where it is. It becomes most obvious that
God loved us before we loved him because he loved us from
eternity with a free, sovereign, distinguishing love. It becomes
obvious also that God's love precedes our love for him when
we consider that all that his love has done for us was done
for us without any love toward him. There was a time And I couldn't see the love of
God in anything. Oh, I heard folks talk about
God loving me, but I had enough sense to realize something was
wrong with it. I looked in every direction, but I found nothing
to indicate God's love for me. It was there. It was there. God
loved me from eternity, but I couldn't see it. I had no reason to suspect
that he loved me. But now, Looking back upon the
pages of scripture and the pages of my life's existence, I see
the love of God in everything I've experienced. I see the love
of God in everything that he's done, in every work of his hand. He first loved me. I rejoice in God's electing love. We're bound to give thanks always
to God for you. Now election is simply God Exercising
his love for us before the world began it is God exercising his
love toward us Choosing to be gracious to it is God exercising
his love toward us choosing to show us mercy It is God exercising
His love toward us from all eternity, determining that He would be
our God and we'd be His people. That's electing love. In love,
He predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will.
My very soul stands in awe before God when I think of His redeeming
love. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid
down His life for us. God in love sent his Son to redeem
us. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ did
not die to win God's love for us. He died because of God's
love for us. He loved us before his Son died. For God so loved the world that
as the result of his love he gave his only begotten Son. It
was not to make Jehovah's love toward the sinner plain. that
Jesus from his throne above a suffering man became, t'was not the death
which he endured, nor all the pains he bore, that God's eternal
love procured, for God was loved before. He loved the world of
his elect with love surpassing thought, nor will his mercier
neglect the soul so dearly bought. And I even delight in what the
old Puritans used to call God's preventing or prevenient love. That simply means love that goes
before. It's the ruling love of God's
prophetess. Today, I see most clearly the
love of God in his prophetess. And I see it not only today,
but I see it in his prophetess which I experienced even before
I was converted. You see, God's love for me set
the time of my birth, the bounds of my habitation, and the path
of my feet by which he was determined to bring me to himself. I was
born to a fellow who was a sick woman in the army during the
Korean War. He was off station, I believe,
over here in Fort Knox when I was born, I'm not sure. At any rate,
I was born on a sharecropper's farm, laid out on the kitchen
table when I was born. Born to folks who had nothing
and who were likely never to have anything. I was born to
a man who had no interest in the gospel of Christ and born
to a woman who had no interest in the gospel of Christ. I was
born to them to be brought to Winston-Salem, North Carolina,
to be raised in a city among rebels who had no interest in
the gospel of Christ, to be raised under the influence of teachers,
counselors, and guides who had no knowledge of the living God
until the time that I was nearly grown. I was born in a household
wherein God's good propaganda left to myself I would be a most
rebellious son. And I'll tell you why. Because
God loved me. He loved me. That's the reason
I was born where I was and raised the way I was. He loved me. Oh, sometimes, you know, coming
through from the back side, I thought to myself, hell can't be any
worse than this. Sometimes I thought to myself,
If there's a hell, it can't be more miserable than the life
I've got on this earth. And it was just the suspicion
that maybe it was that kept me committing suicide. You know what I went through
all that? For God's love. God's love. Can you understand that? Can you understand that? God
said, it's hard on me! And there was one path. One path by which this rebel
could be brought to bow to Christ. And while I willingly, deliberately,
of my own sinful choice and will, picked up my feet and put them
one in front of another all the days of my life and ran the course
of rebellion against God, while I did that of my own will, it
was as true that God Almighty directed my steps as if He had
forced me like a puppet on a string to take one step after another
step bringing me in the path that he had ordained, so that
in the time of his death he would say, Me of you, and he would
give his son in name. Pastor, what do you think
about all the things you did and all the things you went through? overruling my will, overruling
my works, overruling my ungodliness, overruling the will and the works
and the ungodliness of multitudes of men to bring me to you. Now Merle, that's the grace I
believe in, and that's the grace I preach, and that's the God
who's big enough for me to respect and to worship and to adore. Yes, God has an appointed time,
for he will meet the soul he loves, and he will graciously
bring every soul whom he loves to the place where love shall
be revealed. Let me show you. Ezekiel chapter 20. Ezekiel chapter
20. Look at verse 35. Now, this is
promised to God. He says, I will bring you into
the wilderness of the people. When God deals with you, he'll
get you alone. It may be sitting in a crowded room with thousands
of people around, but he's going to get you alone. He's going
to get you alone. And there will I plead with you. Look at it. face to face, like as I pleaded
with your fathers in the wilderness in the land of Egypt, so will
I plead with you, saith the Lord God, and I will call you to pass
under the rod, under the rod of the Father's love, under the
rod of the shepherd's care." The illustration, if I remember
correctly, Mr. Spurgeon said, alluded to the
shepherd as he folds his sheep at night. He stretches out his
staff, and he counts the sheep by touching them as they come
through the fold. As they come through the door into the sheepfold,
he touches each other. He says, well, old Blackie's
here, old Snowball's here, and he counts them one by one. He
says, I'm going to bring you past under the rod. Well, old
Don's here, old Hubert's here. I'll bring you to pass under
the rod. Do you see that? And I will bring
you into the bond of the covenant. I will bring you to realize my
covenant mercy. And I'll bring your heart to
be in bondage to me by a willing, loving bondage. Children of God,
there never was a time when God didn't love us. Though for many
years we lay in the arms of another, his love for us would never quench.
Like Gomer in the book of Hosea, she ran off and she found her
lovers. And she said, all these fellows
are so good to me. She wore a fine wool coat in
the wintertime. She said, look here what my lover
did. And she had her corn. And she'd
spread a feast, and she'd say, this is what my lovers have given
me. This is the reward of my lovers to me. She'd set out wine, best wine
there was. And she'd say, well, yeah, I'm
a harlot, and a harlot's got a rough way of life, but there's
reward in it. Look what my lovers gave me.
The Lord God says, Hosea, was the one who came up and gave
her her wool, and her coal, and her oil, and her wine. And that's
what God says concerning you and me. She didn't know it. She
thought her lovers gave her that. You didn't know it. You thought
your hands fed you. You thought that your own works
fed you. You thought you got things by the sweat of your brow.
God says while you were laying in the bosom of this world, I
gave you your corn and your oil and your flax and your wine.
I provided for you day by day by day. He did, even when we
didn't know him. He protected us. You know what
the angels are? I don't know much about angeology,
but I know this. They're ministering spirits sent
forth to minister to those who shall be the heirs of salvation. I look back on days of my rebellion, my ungodliness, and I fully realize that God sent angels to encamp
round about me from the moment that I came forth from my mother's And they protected me against
my own evil ways. I played with death like a fool
playing Russian roulette. But God wouldn't let me die.
He wouldn't let me die. He provided me with everything
I needed. He ordered my prayers. Well, I got to her. I'll give
you the next two things. Not only did the love of God
for us precede our love for him, but the love of God for us is
the cause of our love for him. We love him, John said, because
he first loved us. The love of God for us is the
motive, the force, the power, the source, and the cause of
our love for him. Love for us in God created love for God in
us. If we now love the Lord our God,
it's because he first loved us. We love him with the love which
he created in us. You see, love must be planted
and sustained in our heart by the power of God's grace. Otherwise,
we wouldn't have any love for him. Whatever we are now, by
the grace of God, we are as a direct result of God's great love for
us. You, hath he quickened, who were
dead in trespasses and in sin, wherein in time past you walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
and power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in
time past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of our flesh and of the mind, and we were by nature children
of wrath, even as others. But God, for his great love wherewith
he loved us, even when we were dead in sin, hath quickened us
together with Christ, by grace you're saved. For sovereign mercy called me,
and taught my opening mind, The world had else enthralled me
to heavenly glories blind. My heart owned none before thee,
for thy rich grace I thirst. This knowing, my God, if I love
thee, thou must have loved me first. We love him because He loved
us. He loved us. It was the love
of God that sent Christ to die in our place to be the propitiation
for our sins. It was the love of God that sent
a preacher to you with the word of the gospel at the time when
he ordained life to you. It was the love of God that caused
Paul and Lydia to meet in Philippi. And it was the love of God that
caused Paul to be thrown in prison in Philippi to meet that jailer
at the time God had appointed. Do you see that? No wonder the
prophet said, how beautiful. Oh, what a wonderful sound, the
feet of that man who preaches the gospel of peace. who brings
glad tidings of good things, who says and desires thy God
reigneth. How beautiful, how beautiful
are the feet of that who carries the message of redeeming love.
And it was the love of God that sent his spirit to quicken our
hearts, creating faith in us and love toward the Lord Jesus
Christ. Paul said, because you are sons, because God from eternity
adopted and predestinated you as son. God had sent forth the
spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Now let
me tell you one more thing about the love of God for us. God's
love for us is eternal. That's the first thing. God's
love for us is the cause of our love for him. That's the second
thing. Now here's the third thing. God's love for us is immutable. Immutable. Never changed. I don't know which part I like
better. His love is immutable. He says, I am the Lord. I change not. Therefore, you
sneaky, tricky, conniving, deceitful, worthless, sinful, Sons of Jacob
are not consumed. The reason you're not dead is
because I don't change. The reason you're not in hell is because
I don't change. The reason you've not perished from off the earth
is because I don't change. I change now. God's love like
himself is the same yesterday, today and forever, unchanging
and unchangeable. God's love for us is not a passion. It's not an emotion in God's
heart toward us. When we think of love, we always
think of a passion or an emotion or a feeling, something like
that. God's immutable. He doesn't have passions. He
doesn't get high, get low like we do. He doesn't burst out in
love and then burst out in anger like we do. He's unchangeable.
God's love for us. Listen to me now. Listen to me.
God's love for us is the eternal, unalterable commitment of His
very being to our eternal happiness and well-being. It is the commitment
of God's very being to our eternal happiness and well-being. God's
love is the determination of His heart to do us good. and
the eternal satisfaction, delight, and complacency of his heart
in us for Christ's sake. When I say that God's love never
changes, I mean it never changes in its object. Now, let me tell
you something. You who do not believe, you who
do not know our God, you're not going to persuade God to start
loving you by some trick, or by some act, or by some deed
you perform, by saying some magic, hocus-pocus prayer. Oh, I get so sick and tired. I see thousands of how men and
women and children tricked into religious delusion. Some preacher's
got to keep his statistics up. He's got to let everybody know
he's getting the job done. So for the sake of having the
applause of men, he deceived the souls of sinners and he said,
just say a little prayer after me. Everything will be okay.
You don't get God to love you by something you do. God loved
his own from eternity! And if you believe this day,
it's because he loves you. That's the cause. God loves his
elect, all of his elect, for the same reason. He loves Bobby
Estes and Don Fortner for exactly the same reason, because he will. That's all. That's all. He loves
us for the same reasons he loved Jacob, because he will. He loves
us for the same reasons he hates Esau, because he will. Because he will. Even so, Father,
for so it seemed good in thy sight. God loves all of his elect for
the same reason, and he loves all of his elect to the same
degree. He loves perfectly, perfectly. There are no variations in God's
love. He loves perfectly, fully. He
loves us, Merle, as he loves his son. That's what he said.
As he loves his son. Sometimes he manifests his love
more than at other times, but his love's always the same. Sometimes
he hides his face from us, but his love's still the same. Sometimes
he rebukes and chastens us, but his love is still the same. God
will never cease his own to cherish. He loved us before we were made. And when he created us upon the
earth and our daddy Adam, and he looked at his creation, he
looked at our daddy Adam, he said, behold, it was very good.
He loved us just the same as he did for eternity. And when
Adam, when Don Fortner, he and Adam, tried to kill God, He loved me just like he did
for his parents. Never changed. Never changed. I came forth from the womb like
you did, speaking lies, and spent the days of my life in rebellion
to God. I hated him just like you do.
Just like you do. And we're all God-haters. That's
what we are by nature. Every one of us. We're not little
God-lovers. We love our little pocketknife
God. We don't love God. We hate God. We didn't hate him
with Babel. We hate God. That's what man
is by nature. I live just like that in rebellion
against God. But his love was just the same
as it was from old. One day he revealed his love
to me and in me in Christ Jesus. Oh my soul, I fell in love with
the living God. I did, I just flat fell in love
with the Son of God. And I thought, man, things are
different now. Well, they were, but they weren't.
They were for me, a whole lot different, but not for him. He
loved me just the same as he did for all of us. And in these many years, since
first He made himself known to me. Oh, I've sinned so much against
him. I've dishonored him in so many
ways. I've returned such vile ingratitude
to him. Just today. Just today. and every day. But Bob Poncer, he loved me just
the same. I mean exactly the same. Exactly
the same. It never varies. It never varies. His very being, oh my soul, his
very being is committed to my eternal good. That's what his
love is. Help, wealth, and friends. may
all forsake me, but God's love never shall. My soul will soon
be separated from my body, but I am persuaded that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor any other creature
shall ever be able to separate me from the love of God which
is in Christ Jesus my Lord. God's love for me will endure
forever, and he will see to it that my
love for him endures forever." He said, I'll give you one heart,
one way, that you shall not depart from me. Having loved his own
which were in the world, he loved them to the end, to the end of
their lives, to the end of time, and to all eternity. And God's love for all his elect
will bring all of his elect to the same enjoyment of eternal
bliss and eternal glory. For he shall bring the souls
that he loves, every soul that he loves, into the full reward
of eternal glory, to the inheritance to which we have from eternity
in love been predestinated. Pastor, how do you know that
God loves you? How do you know that God set his heart on you for the world? How do you know you're not like
Esau whom God hated? How do you know that in the end
you're not going to be damned as the object of God's wrath?
Well, I'll tell you how I know. I'll tell you how I know. Because I believe. Yes, sir. Dale, I believe this. I believe
on God. I believe. And the reason I believe
is because he loved me before the world began. Now, if you
believe, it's because he loved you before the world began. And if you are ever brought to
believe it's because he loved you before the world began. It's that simple. It's that simple. I know God's love for the Noah's
son. Trust his son. Amen.