LOVE ACCORDING TO GOD
[p. 239] LOVE ACCORDING TO GOD
Romans 8: 28; John 14: 21; Colossians 1: 4; 2 Thessalonians 2: 10
What is in mind is to speak about what is to be loved by christians. What I have in mind is to engage you with what christians are to love, a subject that gives opportunity to speak of other things. There is the idea of love in the world, but love according to God originates with God. Indeed, John’s epistle would show that love is only known since Christ died; that is, love here in this world, for he says, “Hereby we have known love, because he has laid down his life for us”, 1 John 3: 16. It does not say, Hereby we have known His love. Having that in mind, I propose my present subject, and to show how this love works out in christians.
There is what is natural, and what is rightly called love, but not in this sense has it to be understood in certain contexts in Scripture. We have in 2 Timothy 3 what is to obtain in the last days. The apostle, warning Timothy, says that difficult times shall come, the first feature of difficulty being that people are loving themselves. The second, they love money; they are covetous. The last is that they love pleasure; they do not love what is good, loving pleasure rather than God. Every christian worthy of the name will confirm this, that it marks our times. People are lovers of themselves; they love to adorn themselves with paint and powder and clothing, all because they love themselves. In order to do that I need money, and hence I love money, and in loving myself and loving money I shall run counter to good people, good in the sense of being real christians. Then it also says that men shall not be lovers of such people or anything that marks them; they do not love what is good.
[p. 240] If we were to take away these loves, love of self, love of money, love of pleasure, we should greatly diminish the articles of commerce in the world, if all were not marked by these things. Then, as I said, shutting God out of all this, they are non-lovers of God, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. That is what marks our time. What was then in anticipation is now a fact, and a very solemn one. But my theme is what we should love, and of course God has the prior place. He commences by requiring the affections of our hearts. In doing this He intimated at Sinai that it was not that He did not have lovers, not that He was asking for love, for there were thousands who loved Him even then: “Thousands of them that love me” (Exodus 20: 6), He says. But He was seeking that others should be added to the number, and so He says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart”. This is the first and great commandment. The thought then was that He should increase His lovers, and that is the thought tonight, that God should increase His lovers.
So in order to introduce this thought, we are told that “All things work together for good to those who love God”, Romans 8: 28. That is the first scripture, one single verse in a very rich chapter. It is one of the greatest things in a sense that could be said, that all things work together for good, not severally, but together. Some things by themselves would be overwhelming. Paul’s thorn in the flesh, if left by itself, would possibly be overwhelming. He besought the Lord thrice that it should be removed, but the Lord said, “My grace suffices thee”, 2 Corinthians 12: 9. That is the balance. The thorn in the flesh worked together with the grace and with many other things. They work together. Paul was a lover of God, and proved as a lover of God that the things that seemed to be against him were for him. God brings in discipline — [p. 241] what seems to be adverse, and it must be a sort of balance that is needed to work together with something else. That thorn in the flesh was a messenger of Satan, which in itself could not be good, and so it is with many things. Viewed severally in themselves they are not good, but they are workers for good with other things. There is a balance of things with God, and it is in the balancing that you get the word ‘together’, and the result that is intended. It is the result that belongs to only one class of people, and those are lovers of God. That is the idea. That is an inducement, dear brethren, to young people especially, to fall in with this thought of loving God. He says there are a multitude of workers, “all things” mark you, “all things work together for good to those who love God”. I should not undertake to recount what these things are. Things are happening internationally, nationally, and socially in a world-wide sense, and these things all balance a christian. The more he loves God the more he takes account of these things. He says that God is ordering them. They seem to be for the moment against what is of God, but presently other things come up, and the spiritual men, lovers of God, say that they are all balanced. They are perfectly poised. In the discipline of His people, in the ordering of their ways here under His eye, beloved brethren, everything is in infinite accuracy with God. Spiritually we must have the same accuracy that belongs to the physical creation, for if there was a point out of balance in the physical system we should have disaster. So as lovers of God, we shall love to place ourselves in His hands, knowing nothing happens amiss. Everything is perfectly poised with perfect results, that is to say, “good”.
I do not want to say much more about lovers of God. What is alluded to is that there are thousands of them, as at Sinai, and so He can speak of them today, and He tells us that “If any one love God, he is known of him”, 1 Corinthians 8: 3. God would salute him, if I may speak reverently, recognising in holy dignity those who love Him. They are known of Him. He picks them out in a crowd. He picks out His lovers, and gives them to understand they are His. Indeed, He goes so far as to mark us off, for “he that establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God, who also has sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts”, 2 Corinthians 1: 21, 22. God does that.
Deborah of old confirms this, “Let them that love him be as the rising of the sun in its might”, Judges 5: 31. She had such a sense of good in the great hymn, “Then sang Deborah”. I have been thinking lately that we do not sing enough, that the thought of singing is rather dying out amongst the brethren. I have been thinking, too, that the service of God is more made up of singing than of ordinary speaking. If you take the history of the service of God in the Scriptures, I think you will find that the leading thought in it is singing, and you can see how it must be so. The Lord spoke on the cross of singing. It is one of the most touching things, that the Lord could devote Himself to the praises of Israel while hanging on the gibbet. He says, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”. He does not say that in song. That is not the subject of song. But He also says, “But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel”, Psalm 22: 3. He spoke of that. Would He not allude to what we find emanating from the saints in the Old Testament? David is the great leader of praise, the sweet psalmist of Israel. The Lord anticipated it. It was the Spirit of God in David who spoke in Psalm 22, and we can understand the references in 1 Chronicles, and in the great book of Psalms too, that God inhabited that; not simply that He heard the praises, but He inhabited the praises. Solomon says to Him, “The heavens, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee” (1 Kings 8: 27), but the Lord in Spirit says, “Thou who inhabitest the praises of Israel”. He found His dwelling place, His joy, in the praises of Israel.
I was alluding to Deborah singing. The song begins, “For that leaders led”. It is a song for leaders, and dear brethren, there never was a time when leaders are so needed, leaders who lead. These are the only ones of value. Leaders led in Israel, that is the key. Looking back on the few days preceding, how her heart was aglow with the sense of devotedness and courage and loyalty of the leaders. She finishes with, “Let them that love him be as the rising of the sun in its might”. That is no vain desire; heaven heard that. Doubtless that song often penetrated heaven from holy hearts, and heaven answered, “Let them that love him be as the rising of the sun in its might”. Is not that an incentive to love God? Deborah had been talking in the song to God, but that verse is in the third person, “Let them that love him”, as if a someone after singing that song would put in that word, “Let them that love him be as the rising of the sun in its might”. I am putting in a claim for God, dear brethren. That is all I am doing tonight; saying that God deserves the love of your heart, and it will not be for nothing. Join with those who love God!
The next feature of my subject is the love of Christ. I think one of the features of teaching at the moment that the Spirit of God is giving, is that we should distinguish between divine Persons, that we should know how to guard Them in our minds and in our service, that we should not be confused. We are very likely to be confused. We are finite creatures; divine Persons are infinite, but nevertheless They are presented so as to be understood in the [p. 244] measure that the creature may understand, and each is to have His own place in the economy, in which He has come — God eternally dwelling Himself, but manifested in three Persons. He dwells in the unknown absolute state of things, “Dwelling in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor is able to see”, 1 Timothy 6: 16. That state of things remains. It has not been dissolved, but the Deity has come out into an economy with the view to gaining man’s heart and securing men in every way for the divine thoughts and purpose. And so one of Them has become Man, so as to be visible. The other two, if you will understand me, speaking with reverence, remain invisible. What God is essentially is not seen, “Whom no man has seen, nor is able to see”. It is a most important thing to keep that in mind, but in the economy the three Persons are plainly marked off, the Father, the Son and the Spirit. It is one Name in Matthew 28 to which we are baptised, that “of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”. God becomes apprehended in that way, and we are told that He is love. When scripture says, “God is love”, it speaks of what He is Himself, what He is relatively to us. What the Persons are between Themselves we know must be love unquestionably, but what scripture is dealing with is what has come out. We know love, not only in the incarnation, but in that He laid down His life. It is what God is, and God is to be loved, but Christ has taken a mediatorial place, and He is to be loved in His mediatorial place. Hence the great need of being taught, of following the way the Scripture presents the truth to us, and we shall find in doing so that the Holy Spirit is confirming us in our feelings and minds, that we are sure it is the truth, for the Spirit is the Spirit of truth. These are most important things, so that we shall apprehend Christ as come, mediatorially taking a lowly place,
[p. 245] going lower than we are able to follow Him in order to get down to reach us, and to become an Object for us of personal affection, so much so that the apostle Paul has the greatest love for Christ. He says, “If any one love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha”, 1 Corinthians 16: 22. Such a sense of abhorrence did he have of non-lovers of Christ, that he says any such one at that time will be accursed, a most solemn, terrible thing.
So the Lord in this chapter says, “He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me”, John 14: 21. Every christian worthy of the name would say that he loves Christ, but the Lord is not content with that. What He stresses are the commandments. These are the test. “He that has my commandments”. It is a remarkable thing that the Lord brings in His love. “I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth”. Then, “He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me”.
Then again, one of the disciples said, “How is it that thou wilt manifest thyself to us and not to the world?”. Jesus answered and said, “If any one love me, he will keep my word”. So that you see, dear brethren, what I am speaking of enters peculiarly into these verses in John 14, and they become a test to every christian on earth. No one has any title to the name of christian in a moral sense save that he keeps the commandments of Christ. I do not ask any mere professor to become a heathen, but at the same time such are not in any better case than a mohammedan, buddhist, or heathen. The test and proof of the matter is that you keep Christ’s commandments. Let no one talk or merely assume to keep His commandments. What a great thing it is to keep the commandments of Jesus, what comes to you as a lover of Jesus. The lovers of Jesus are all known in heaven; they compose the ‘Who’s Who’ book in heaven. What a thing it is that every name is recorded in heaven. I am known there. I do not believe there is an intelligence in heaven among the angels who would not know the names of the lovers of Jesus. They are going to be there, the nobility of heaven, their names are registered in heaven. Why not be enrolled among the lovers of Jesus?
But the point that I make is, that Jesus said, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him”. Are these things not worth something? That the Lord Jesus loves you and the Father loves you, and the Son manifests Himself to you; and not only that, but the Father and the Son come to such an one as that. I think I am putting in a plea for Christ, I do not hesitate to say that. I have been putting in a claim for God, that you should love Him, and I do so now for Christ.
Then thirdly is love for the saints. That is why I read from Colossians. The only mention of the Spirit of God in Colossians is to say that the saints love in the Spirit. One of the greatest things that can be said of a christian is that he loves in the Spirit. That was the kind of love that the Colossians had. It is quality that is in mind. We speak of love a great deal, of course, and we should. It is one of the leading words in the divine vocabulary, but love in the Spirit is the greatest thought in this connection. That means that I am like God, the Spirit brings me into accord with God, that I love like God, and if so I shall love without partiality. One of the most painful things amongst us and the cause of all kinds of difficulties I think today, is partiality. We are to be without it. It is classed among other things as hypocrisy. Love in the Spirit is not partial; it is general. That is to say, wrought out in regard [p. 247] to one class, and that class is designated by the name “saints”, augmented by the word “all”. “The love which ye have towards all the saints”. This is a very important point, that is to say, the Colossian saints did not love a brother, a person with ability to serve the saints, because he lived in Colosse. They would just as soon love a gift in Rome as in Colosse. You know what goes with partiality — sectionalism. It is a great weakness with us. We think of people and talk of them because they are in our section. That is not Colosse. The teaching of Colossians implies that we come to the Jordan and when we come up against death, partiality is to drop out. We are viewing the death and resurrection of Christ, and what comes to light is the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the earth, and that is universality. That is not sectionalism. So that Colossians is the great epistle on the way to Ephesians, and it enables me to love the saints because they are saints wherever they live. It works out in the keeping of the unity of the Spirit and the unity of the faith.
One goes around a little, and you meet people in visiting various meetings and brethren, and one has to take account of what is known, is current in the whole assembly. If we are characteristic assembly persons we shall have ears for hearing all that pertains to God that is current on earth — like the ears of the assembly at Jerusalem. It is the only assembly spoken of as having ears. Each assembly has ears but how do they use them? The assembly at Jerusalem heard about things at Antioch and were affected by what they heard. So it should be. If we are with God we shall have ears for everything that affects God and His people everywhere. “Love ... towards all the saints”. We will never talk about what we have in our district. That is merely carnality. It is universal love that is needed.
[p. 248] If we have a little sister who is not getting on well (Song of Songs 8: 8), it is an obligation. We have to do something. Instead of running her down we make the most of her. “Love ... towards all the saints”.
The final thought is love of the truth. That is necessary. In Thessalonians the apostle speaks of persons who received not the love of truth. It is not viewed as something worked up in myself, but something to be received. It belongs to the treasury, as it were, as available to me, and the apostle says that there would be those who did not love the truth, did not receive the love of the truth, and because of that God would send a strong delusion, and antichrist would come in with all deceitfulness, and God would send them a strong delusion that men should believe a lie. Why? Because they received not the love of the truth.
Now, dear brethren, there is the fourth feature I would suggest. I think four is well even in ministry, because you get the universal idea. It is a principle with God. My subject is on that principle. Love for God is within our reach, love for Christ, love for the saints; “all the saints”, do not forget that. We talk about love, but do not forget the universal side of it. How beautiful are the saints! God speaks beautifully about them, and it is to indicate His thoughts to us, that we should think of them beautifully and speak beautifully, and clothe them with the very best thoughts.
So, finally, we have the love of the truth. Perhaps if we make a comparison it is the least known of any. Brethren who love God and Christ do not receive things on one-sided testimony. That is not the truth. That is not love of truth. I must have truth about a thing. As Job says, “Let mine opponent write an accusation!” Job 31: 35. Let him say all he wishes. You may have people praising and [p. 249] eulogising, but refusing the ministry of the one they make so much of. I would rather they write a book, and then we know what they mean. Such persons do not put their mind on paper, they put it where it does harm, and hence the importance of the love of the truth. I must have all sides. I must have the whole truth, as Job says again, “How hast thou ... plentifully declared the thing as it is!” Job 26: 3. That is what anyone who loves the truth will look for, and if he does not have it, he will inquire from those who have, so that he may have it aright. That is the fourth thought, and I commend it to you. We are now in the days of modernism, all of which is, root and branch, a lie. It is taught in the schools, adorned in every possible way by man’s ability and learning, but it is a lie, and indeed the very fact that it is so current and so accepted today, so eulogised, is proof of the prophetic character of 2 Thessalonians, that God allows these things that men should believe a lie because they have not received the love of the truth.
How important it is that those who love God honestly should also love the truth and be a testimony to the truth, for the Lord says, as a great principle, to the man who was cleansed, “Go, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses ordained, for a testimony to them”, Matthew 8: 4. That “them” is as wide as can be made. It refers to all persons who are against God, but God, in spite of their opposition, is bearing testimony to the truth. Every lover of God would say, I want to be a testimony to them. What a great honour it is in these days to be a testimony. What it is to heaven, our meetings here in this vast city, to go over the truth, enjoying it together, the Spirit of God with us. The Spirit superintends these meetings, causes the truth to go out and be accepted. It is a testimony to them. The priests, so to say, the leaders of [p. 250] modern religion, are outside. It is a testimony to them.
The wonderful patience of God is very affecting in the last days. He says in writing the last assembly address, I offer you a word of counsel. I am about to spue you out of My mouth, thou art neither cold nor hot. The counsel is, “Buy of me”. You are ready to go any distance to see a little bit of pleasure, and sacrifice to see it. Why do you not buy from Me, I have good things to sell. “Gold purified by fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white garments, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not be made manifest; and eye-salve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see”, Revelation 3: 18. How beautiful it is, that Christ should offer counsel in these days! It is a testimony to them. “Behold, I stand at the door and am knocking; if any one hear my voice and open the door, I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me”, Revelation 3: 20. That is the attitude of God at the present time to all of them for a testimony to them, and it is our position as lovers of Christ to see, that as far as we may, we render testimony to them. God will bring it up in that day, ‘The people in Los Angeles knew about that’. ‘I had My people there’, as Daniel said to Belshazzar, “Thou knewest all this”, Daniel 5: 22. That is how the matter stands, and you can see that what I am saying enters into it, that it would tend to make us a testimony to them.