God Is Love
My text is taken from the 1st epistle of John. “God is love.” I hope this text will find its way into every heart here. I want to prove it from Scripture. The great trouble with men is, they are all the time trying to measure God by their own rule, and from their own standpoint. A man is apt to judge others from his own standard. If a man is covetous, he thinks every one else is covetous. If he is a selfish man, he thinks every one else is selfish. If a man is guilty of adultery, he thinks every other man is. If a man is dishonest, he thinks every other man is. Many are trying to bring God down to their own level. They don’t know that between human love and divine love there is as much difference as there is between darkness and light.
God’s love is deep and high; Paul says it passeth knowledge. We love a man as long as he is worthy of our love, and when he is not we cast him off; but we don’t find in the Word of God that God casts off those who are not worthy of his love. If he did, there would be no one in the kingdom of God except Jesus himself. He was obedient unto death. He was worthy of love.
Now, men are believing the devil’s lies when they don’t believe that God is love. A few years ago, when we built a church in Chicago, a friend put up over the pulpit in gas-jets the words “God is love.” We thought, if we couldn’t preach it into the hearts of the people we would burn it in. A man happened to see the text there, and said to himself: “God is not love; God does not love me;” and he came into the church, not to hear the sermon, but to see the text as it was burning there upon the wall. The arrow reached its mark. He went into the inquiry meeting. I inquired what it was impressed him. He said it was not the sermon; it was those words that had burned into his soul. He was weeping, and he wanted to know what he should do to be saved.
There is no woman that loves on this earth like a mother. There is no love on earth so strong as a mother’s love. A great many things will separate a man from his wife, or a father from a son; but nothing will separate a true mother from her child. She will love him through all his sin and iniquity. He may sink so low that a hiss will go up against him from every human being, but the mother loves him through it all. God takes that for an illustration. He says: Can a mother forget her child? “Yea, they may forget, but I will not forget thee. Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, and thy name is ever before me.” His love is unchangeable. He loved Judas, when Judas betrayed him with a kiss. I should have thought that love would have broken the heart of Judas. If there is a soul goes down to hell, it must go over God’s love. You have to trample that love under your feet.
~ From “God is Love” in The Gospel Awakening
