(iii)

(iii) Geoffrey Bailey

1 John 4: 19-21; Matthew 7: 17 (to “…fruits”)

Our opening hymn to the Holy Spirit desired that we should be stimulated by touches of His love (Hymn 97). I think we have had the experience in what has come before us already of that love, the love of the bondman exceeded the law; it went beyond every natural claim, “I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go free” Exod. 21: 5. How comprehensive it is. Jesus loved his Father. This Man here loved what was the product of His life and His dying, what has come to light as a result of it, and He loves those that make up the assembly. He loves each one of us; He has died for each one of us. Never let us forget that the price that was paid for me was paid for the brother or the sister next to me. It is very searching what our brother has said and I think we can recognise the Lord’s voice in it.

These verses I have read in John’s epistle are written by one who was particularly marked as a loveable person, John; he not only was loved, he knew the love of the Lord Jesus. But he expresses love in what he communicates to us. He says, “We love because he has first loved us”. Each of us is here, dear brother and sister, because Christ has loved us, He has given His life. He had you in His mind, He had me in His mind for blessing and He has gone into heaven carrying our names. Our names are there. Jesus says to the disciples when they were full of their own achievements, their own accomplishments, “rejoice not, that the spirits are subjected to you, but rejoice that your names are written in the heavens” (Luke 10: 20), your name, my name. John who was very conscious of the love of the Lord Jesus says here, “We love because he has first loved us”, but then he goes on to say these solemn words, “If any one say, I love God, and hate his brother”. I suppose everyone here would say that they love God, but there is a test, “If any one say, I love God, and hate his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” I think the words of scripture are fully expressive without seeking to develop them; he goes on and says, “this commandment have we from him, That he that loves God love also his brother”. Three times the Lord Jesus speaks in the gospel of John of His new commandment “that ye love one another”(see 13: 34; 15: 12,17); that is His commandment. If we love Him we keep His commandments: that is very simple. We cannot advance any reason for not coming under such a commandment, “That he that loves God love also his brother” or sister; it is there, it is simple, it is plain, there is no escaping the burden of it.

We have been reading Matthew at home and our brother referred to the assembly gospel and its word, and Matthew is the assembly gospel and I just read the phrase that impresses me, “So every good tree produces good fruits”. If you want to read on you are at liberty to do so, but all I want to leave is that, “every good tree produces good fruits”. May the Lord bless the word.

6 August 2002