“Herein Is Love”

"Herein Is Love"

(No. 1707)

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 18, 1883,

BY C, H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved
us, we ought, also, to love one another." 1 John 4:10,11.

THE Law commands love, indeed, all its precepts are summed up in that
one word, "love." More widely read it runs thus–"You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all
your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as
yourself–yet all this amounts only to, "You shall love." But the Law,
by reason of our depravity, never produced love. We were commanded to
love, but we did no such thing. The spirit that is in us is selfish and
it lusts to envy and to enmity. Why do wars and fights come among us?
Come they not from our lusts? Since the Fall, man has become man's
bitterest foe upon the earth–and the world is full of hate,
slandering, struggles, fighting, wounding, and slaying–all that the
Law can do is to show the wrong of enmity and threaten punishment. It
cannot supply an unregenerate heart with a fountain of love.

Man remains unloving and unlovable till the Gospel takes him in hand
and, by Grace, accomplishes that which the Law could not do, in that it
was weak through the flesh. Love is winning many hearts to the Kingdom
of God and its reign shall extend till love shall rule over the whole
earth. And so the Kingdom of God shall be set up among men and God
shall dwell among them. At the present moment love is the
distinguishing mark of the people of God. Jesus said, "By this shall
all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love, one to
another." And John said, "We know that we have passed from death unto
life because we love the Brethren." The man whose spirit is selfish has
not the spirit of Christ and, "if any man have not the spirit of Christ
he is none of His."

The man whose spirit is that of envy and contention is evidently no
follower of the lowly and loving Jesus–and those who do not follow
Jesus are none of His. They that are Christ's are filled with His love.
"Everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God. He that loves not
knows not God; for God is Love." God is the center of the Believer's
love. The saints are an inner circle specially beloved and all mankind
are embraced within the circumference of the ring of love. "He that
dwells in love dwells in God, and God in Him" and he, alone, is a child
of God whose spirit is kindly and affectionate and who seeks, wherever
he is, to promote peace, goodwill towards men.

The saints begin with love to God. That must always hold the highest
place, for God is the best and noblest Being, and we owe Him all our
hearts. Then comes, for Jesus' sake, love to all who are in Christ.
There is a peculiarly near and dear relationship existing between one
child of God and all the rest. Loving Him that begat, we love all them
that are begotten of Him! Should not a child love his brothers with a
tender, peculiar affection? This principle of love, once implanted,
induces in the heart of the converted man a love towards all mankind.
Not that he can take any complacency in the wicked–God, Himself,
cannot do that, for His holiness abhors all iniquity. The love desired
is not the love of complacency, but the love of benevolence, so that we
wish well and, to the utmost of our power, would do well unto all those
that dwell upon the face of the earth. In this holy charity, this
unselfish love, be you imitators of God as dear children.

Our heavenly Father is kind to the unthankful and to the evil, and so
must we be, desiring that even the most abandoned may yet be rescued
and made right and good. Love desires to create that which is lovable
even in the most unlovable of mankind and, God helping the effort, she
succeeds. I hear one say, "This is a vast idea. Are we to love at this
rate? Where is the love to come from? Our hearts are narrow, men are
unworthy, provocations are numerous, another spirit is abroad in the
world–where is this love to come from? Where is this flood of love
which is to cover the tops of the mountains of man's unworthiness to
come from?"

Have you entered into the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in
search of the depths? Yes, by the leadings of God's Spirit, we will
search out the springs of the sea of love! Only in one place shall we
find love enough for our supreme

purpose, which is also the purpose of the Lord, Himself. There is one
shoreless ocean into which we may be baptized and out of which we may
be filled until we overflow! Where is the unfailing motive of Love? For
Love is tried and hardly put to it to hold her own! Can we find a
motive that will never fail, even towards the most provoking of
mankind? Can we find an argument for affection which shall help us in
times of ingratitude, when base returns threaten to freeze the very
heart of charity? Yes, there is such a motive! There is a force by
which even impossibilities of love can be accomplished and we shall be
supplied with a perpetual constraint moving the heart to ceaseless
charity!

Come with me, then, in the first place, to notice the infinite spring
of love–"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved
us." Secondly, let us observe the marvelous outflow of that love–"God
sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." And then, thirdly,
let us notice the overflow of that love in us, when it fills our hearts
and runs over to others. "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought, also,
to love one another."

I. First, THE INFINITE SPRING OF LOVE. Our text has two words upon
which I would place an emphasis– "not," and "but." The first is,
"not." " Herein is love, not"– "not that we loved God." Very naturally
many conclude that this means, "not that we loved God first." That is
not exactly the Truth of God taught here, but still it is a weighty
Truth, and is mentioned in this same chapter in express words–"We love
Him because He first loved us" (v. 19). The cause of love in the
universe is not that man loved God first! No being in existence could
love God before God loved him, for the existence of such a being is due
to God's previous love!

His plans of love were all laid and many of them carried out before we
were born. And when we were born, we, none of us, loved God first so as
to seek after God before He sought after us–so as to desire
reconciliation with God before He desired reconciliation with us. No,
whatever may be said about free will as a theory, it is never found as
a matter of fact that any man, left to himself, ever woos his God, or
pines after friendship with his Maker. If he repents of sin, it is
because the Spirit of God has first visited him and shown him his sin!
If he desires restoration, it is because he has, first of all, been
taught to dread the wrath of God and to long for holiness–

"No sinner can be beforehand with Thee! Your Grace is most so vereign,
Most rich, and most free."

We inscribe a negative in black capital letters upon the idea that
man's love can ever be prior to the love of God. That is quite out of
the question. "Not that we loved God."

Take a second sense–that is, not that any man did love God at all by
nature, whether first or second; not that we, any one of us, ever did
or ever could have an affection towards God while we remained in our
state by nature. Instead of loving God, man is indifferent to God. "No
God," says the fool in his heart and, by nature, we are all such fools.
It is the sinner's wish that there were no God. We are atheistic by
nature and if our brain does not yield to atheism, yet our heart does.
We wish that we could sin according to our own will and that we were in
no danger of being called to account for it. God is not in all our
thoughts, or, if He does enter there, it is as a terror and a dread.

No, worse than that–man is at enmity with God by wicked works! The
holiness which God admires, man has no liking for! The sin which God
abominates has about it sweetness and fascination for the unrenewed
heart, so that man's ways are contrary to the ways of God. Man is
perverse. He cannot walk with God, for they are not agreed. He is all
evil and God is all goodness and, therefore, no love to God exists in
the natural heart of man. He may say that he loves God, but then it is
a god of his own inventing and not Jehovah, the God of the Bible, the
only living and true God. A just God and a Savior, the natural mind
cannot endure–the carnal mind is enmity against God, is not reconciled
to God and, neither, indeed, can be! The unregenerate heart is, as to
love, a broken cistern which can hold no water.

In our natural state, there is none that does good, no, not one. So is
there, also, none that loves God, no, not one! We come nearer to John's
meaning when we look at this negative as applying to those who do love
God. "Not that we loved God"–that is, that our love to God, even when
it does exist, and even when it influences our lives, is not worthy to
be mentioned as a fountain of supply for love. The Apostle points us
away from it to something far more vast and then he cries, "Herein is
love." I am looking for "the springs of the sea," and you point me to a
little pool amid the rocks which has been filled by the flowing tide. I
am glad to see that pool–how bright! how blue! how like the sea from
where it came! But do not point to this as the source of the great
water floods, for if you do, I shall smile at your childish ignorance
and point you to you great rolling main which tosses its waves on high.

What is your little pool to the vast Atlantic? Do you point me to the
love in the Believer's heart and say, "Herein is love"? You make me
smile. I know that there is love in that true heart, but who can
mention it in the Presence of the great rolling ocean of the love of
God, without bottom and without shore? The word, "not," is not only
upon my lips but in my heart as I think of the two things–"NOT that we
loved God, but that God loved us." What poor love ours is at its very
best when compared with the love with which God loves us! Let me use
another figure. If we had to enlighten the world, a child might point
us to a bright mirror reflecting the sun. And he might cry, "Herein is
light!" You and I would say, "Poor child, that is but borrowed
brightness. The light is not there, but yonder, in the sun!"

The love of saints is nothing more than the reflection of the love of
God! We have love, but God IS Love. When I think of the love of certain
saints to Christ, I am charmed with it, for it is a trait of the Spirit
not to be despised. When I think of Paul the Apostle counting all
things but loss for Christ. When I think of our missionaries going, one
after another, into malarious parts of the African coast and dying for
Christ. And when I read the Book of Martyrs and see confessors standing
on the firewood, burning quick to the death, still bearing witness to
their Lord and Master–I rejoice in the love of saints to their Lord!
Yet this is but a stream! The unfathomable deep, the eternal source
from which all love proceeds infinitely exceeds all human affection and
it is found in God, and in God alone! "Herein is love, not that we
loved God, but that God loved us."

Let us contrast our love to God with His love to us. Dear Brothers and
Sisters, we do love God and we may well do so, since He is infinitely
lovable. When the mind is once enlightened, it sees everything that is
lovable about God. He is so good, so gracious, so perfect that He
commands our admiring affection. The spouse in the Song, when she
thought of her Beloved, mentioned all manner of beauties and then
cried, "Yes, He is altogether lovely!" It is natural, therefore, that
one who sees God should love Him. But, now, think of God's love to
us–is it not incomparably greater, since there was nothing lovely in
us whatever, and yet He loved us? In us there is, by nature, nothing to
attract the affection of a holy God, but quite the reverse–and yet He
loved us. Herein, indeed, is love! When we love God, it is an honor to
us! It exalts a man to be allowed to love a Being so glorious!

A philosopher once wrote that for a man to speak of being the friend of
God was too daring and, in the reverence of this thoughtful heathen,
there was much to admire, for, indeed, there is an infinite difference
between the glorious God and the sinful creature, man! Though God, in
condescension, allows us to call Him, Friend, and Jesus says, "You are
My friends," yet this is beyond reason, and is a sweet Revelation of
the Holy Spirit. What an uplifting there is in it for us! On the other
hand, God's love to us can add nothing to Him. It gives, but receives
not. Divine Love can have no recompense. That He, the Infinite, should
stoop to love the finite–that He, the infinitely pure, should love the
guilty–this is a vast condescension.

See, moreover, what it involved, for this love rendered it necessary
that in the Person of His dear Son, God should be "despised and
rejected of men," should make Himself of no reputation and should even
be numbered with the transgressors. "Herein is love." When we love God,
we are gainers by the deed. He that loves God does, in the most
effectual manner, love himself. We are filled with riches when we
abound in love to God–it is our wealth, our health, our might and our
delight! But God gains nothing by loving us. I hardly like to set the
two in contrast, for our love is so poor and pitiable a thing as
compared with the immeasurable love of God. It is our duty to love
God–we are bound to do it. As His creatures we ought to love our
Creator! As preserved by His care, we are under obligation to love Him
for His goodness! We owe Him so much that our utmost love is a mere
acknowledgment of our debt.

But God loved us to whom He owed nothing at all! Whatever might have
been the claims of a creature upon his Creator, we forfeited them all
by our rebellion! Sinful men had no rights towards God except the right
of being punished. Yet the Lord manifested boundless love to our race,
which was only worthy to be destroyed. Oh words! How you fail me! I
cannot utter my heart by these poor lips of clay! Oh God, how infinite
was Your love which was given without any obligation on Your
part–freely and unsought–and all because You will to love! Yes You
love because You are Love! There was no cause, no constraint, no claim
why You should love mankind except that Your own heart led You to do so
What is man that You are mindful of him? "Herein is love, not that we
loved God, but that God loved us."

I have thus pointed out the wellhead of love–let us draw from it and
from none other! If you go into the world and say, "I am to love my
fellow men because I love God," the motive is good, but it is
questionable, limited and variable. How much better to argue–"I am to
love my fellow men because God loves me." When my love grows cold
towards

God, and when, by reason of my infirmity and imperfection, I am led,
even, to question whether I love God at all, then my argument and my
impulse would fail me if it came from my own love to God. But if I love
the fallen because God loved me, then I have an unchanging motive, an
unquestionable argument and a forcible impulse not to be resisted!
Therefore the Apostle cried, "The love of Christ constrains us." It is
always well for a Christian to have the strongest motive and to rely
upon the most potent and perpetual force and, therefore, the Apostle
bids us look to Divine Love and not to our own. " Herein is love," he
says, "not that we loved God, but that God loved us."

So far the "not." Let us turn to the, "but." "But that He loved us." I
have nothing new to say, nor do I wish to say anything new. But I would
like you to meditate on each one of these words–"He loved us." Three
words, but what weight of meaning! "He," who is infinitely holy and
cannot endure iniquity–"He loved us" "He," whose glory is the
astonishment of the greatest of intelligent beings–"He loved us."
"He," whom the Heaven of heavens cannot contain, "loved us." "He" who
is God all-sufficient and needs nothing of us–neither can, indeed,
receive anything at our hands–"He loved us." What joy lies sleeping
here! Oh, that we could wake it up! What hope, too, for hopeless
sinners because, "God loved us."

If a man could know that he was loved of all his fellow men, if he
could have it for certain that he was loved by all the angels, doted on
by cherubim and seraphim, yet these were but so many drops and all put
together could not compare with the main ocean contained in the fact
that, "God loved us!" Now ring that second silver bell–"He loved us."
I do not think the Apostle is, here, so much speaking of God's special
love to His own elect as of His love to men in general. He saw our race
ruined in the Fall and He could not bear that man should be destroyed.
Lord, what is man that You visit him in love? Yet He did so visit him.
The Lord's love made Him lament man's revolt and cry, "I have nourished
and brought up children and they have rebelled against Me!" And He bade
Heaven and earth witness to His grief.

He saw that sin had brought men into wretchedness and misery and would
destroy them forever, but He would not have it so. He loved them with
the love of pity, with the love of sweet and strong benevolence and He
declared it with an oath–"As I live, says the Lord, I have no pleasure
in the death of him that dies, but that he turn unto Me and live."
"Herein is love." But if you and I are reconciled to God, we can lay
the emphasis, each one for himself, upon this word, "love," and view it
as special, effectual, electing love. Let each Believer say, "He loved
me, and gave Himself for me." Then what force is in my text, "He loved
us"–it is not enough that He pitied us, or spared us, or helped us,
but, "He loved us."

It has often made me rise from my seat to think that God loves me! I
could not sit still and hear the thrilling Truth! Such knowledge is too
wonderful for me! It is high, I cannot attain unto it. It is sweet to
be loved even by a dog. It is sweet to be loved by a babe. It is sweet
to be loved by a friend–it is sweet to be loved by God's people–but,
oh, to be loved by God and to know it! This is paradise! Would a man
need any other Heaven than to know for certain that he enjoyed the love
of God? Note the third word. "He loved us"–"us"–the most
insignificant of beings. There is an anthill somewhere–it is no matter
to you where it is. It teems with ants. Stir the nest and they swarm in
armies. Think of one of them. No, you do not need to know anything
about him! His business is no concern of yours, so let him go. But that
ant, after all, is more considerable to you than you are to God. "All
the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing."

What are you, even, in this great city?–One man, one woman in London,
in England, in the population of the world–what a cipher you are! Yet
what is the population of this world compared with the universe? I
suppose that all these stars which we see at night, all the countless
worlds within our range of vision, are but as a little dust in a lone
corner of God's great house! The whole solar system and all the systems
of worlds we have ever thought of, are but as a drop in a bucket
compared with the boundless sea of creation! And even that is as
nothing compared to the infinite God! And yet, "He loved us"–the
insignificant creatures of an hour!

What is more, He loved us though in our insignificance we dared to
rebel against Him! We boasted against Him. We cried, "Who is Jehovah?"
We lifted up our hand to fight with Him. Ridiculous rebellion! Absurd
warfare! Had He but glanced at us and annihilated us, it would have
been as much as we could merit at His hands! But to think that He
should love us–love us, mark you–when we were in rebellion against
Him. This is marvelous! Observe that the previous verse speaks of us as
being dead in sin. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us,
because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we
might live through Him." Then we were dead, dead to all goodness, or
thought or

power of goodness–criminals shut up in the condemned cell–and yet God
loved us with a great love even when we were dead in trespasses and
sins!

Child of God, God's love to you today is wonderful! But think of His
love to you when you were far gone in rebellion against Him. When not a
throb of holy, spiritual life could be found in your entire being–yet
He loved you and sent His Son that you might live through Him!
Moreover, He loved us when we were steeped in sin. Does not our text
tell us so? For He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins and
this implies that we needed to be reconciled! Our righteous Judge was
angry with us. His righteous wrath smoked against our evil and yet,
even then, "He loved us." He was angry with us as a Judge, but yet He
loved us! He was determined to punish and yet resolved to save! This is
a world of wonders! I am utterly beaten by my text! I confess myself
mastered by my theme!

But who among us can measure the unfathomable? "Herein is love," that
God freely, out of the spontaneous motion of His own heart, should love
us! This is the argument for love! This is the inexhaustible Fountain
out of which all love must come. If we desire love, may we come and
fill our vessels here and bear it out to others. Love springing from
our own bosoms is feeble and scant–but the love of God is a great
deep, forever fresh, full and flowing. Here are those springs of the
sea of which we spoke–

"Herein is love!"

II. I need your attention a little longer while I speak as best I can
upon THE MARVELOUS OUTFLOW OF THAT LOVE. "Herein is love, not that we
loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins." Beloved, the love of God is seen in
creation! He that studies the mechanism of the human frame and of its
surroundings will see much of Divine kindness there. The love of God is
to be seen in Providence! He that watches the loving hand of God in
daily life will not need to look far before he sees tokens of a
Father's care. But if you want to know when the great deep of God's
love was broken up and arose in the fullness of its strength to prevail
over all. If you would see it revealed in a deluge, like Noah's flood,
you must wait till you see Jesus born at Bethlehem and crucified on
Calvary, for His mission to men is the most Divine manifestation of
love!

Consider every word–"He sent His Son." God "sent." Love caused that
mission. If there was to be reconciliation between God and man, man
ought to have sent to God–the offender ought to be the first to apply
for forgiveness! The weaker should apply to the greater for help. The
poor man should ask of him who distributes alms. But, "Herein is love,"
that God "sent." He was first to send an embassy of peace. Today "we
are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we
pray you in Christ's stead, be you reconciled to God." Oh, the wonder
of this, that God should not wait till rebellious men had sent to His
throne for terms of reconciliation, but should commence negotiations
Himself!

Moreover, God sent such a One–He "sent His Son." If men send an
embassy to a great power, they select some great one of their nation to
wait upon the potent prince. But if they are dealing with a petty
principality, they think a subordinate person quite sufficient for such
a business. Admire, then, the true love of the infinitely gracious God,
that when He sent an embassy to men, He did not commission an angel nor
even the brightest spirit before His Throne, but He sent His Son–oh,
the love of God to men! He sent His equal Son to rebels who would not
receive Him, would not hear Him, but spat upon Him, scourged Him,
stripped Him, slew Him! Yes, "He spared not His own Son, but freely
delivered Him up for us all." He knew what would come of that sending
of Him and yet He sent Him!–

"Jesus, commissioned from above,

Descends to men below,

And shows from where the springs of love

In endless currents flow.

He whom the boundless Hea ven adores,

Whom angels long to see,

Quit with joy those blissful shores,

Ambassador to me!

To me, a worm, a sinful clod,

A rebel all forlorn:

A foe, a traitor, to my God,

And of a traitor born."

Note further, not only the grandeur of the Ambassador, but the
tenderness of the relationship existing between him and the offended
God. "He sent His Son." The previous verse says, "His only-begotten
Son." We cannot speak of God except after the manner of men, for God,
in all His Glory is incomprehensible. But speaking after the manner of
men, what must it have cost Jehovah to take His only Son from His bosom
to die? Christ is the Father's Self–in essence they are One–there is
but one God. We do not understand the mystery of the Trinity in unity,
but we believe it. It was God Himself who came here in the Person of
His dear Son! He underwent all–for we are "the flock of God which He
has purchased with His own blood."

Remember Abraham with the knife unsheathed and wonder as you see him
obey the Voice which says, "Take, now, your son, your only son, Isaac,
whom you love, and offer him for a sacrifice." Remember yet again that
the Lord actually did what Abraham, in obedience, willed to do–He gave
up His Son! "It pleased the Father to bruise Him; He has put Him to
grief." Christ's death was, in fact, God in human form suffering for
human sin! God Incarnate bleeding because of our transgressions! Are we
not, now, carried away with the streams of love? I speak my best, my
Brothers and Sisters, but if my words were what they ought to be, they
would set your souls on fire! Is not all Heaven still astounded at the
death of the Only-Begotten? It has not recovered from its amazement
that the Heir of all things should bow His head to death! How can I
fitly tell you how much God loved the world when He gave His
Only-begotten to die that sinners might live?

Go a step further. "God sent His Son to be a propitiation," that is, to
be not only a reconciler, but the Reconciliation! His sacrifice of
Himself as the Atonement through which mercy is rendered possible in
consistency with justice! I have heard men say with scorn that God
required a sacrifice before He would be reconciled, as if that were
wrong on the part of the Judge of All! But let me whisper in their
ears–God required it, it is true, for He is just and holy. But God
found it Himself! Remember that–Jehovah found the Ransom which He
demanded! It was Himself, His own Son, one with Himself, that became
the Propitiation and the Reconciliation!

It was not that God the Father was unkind and could not be placated
unless He smote His Son–but that God the Father was so kind that He
could not be unjust! So supremely loving that He must devise a way by
which men could be justly saved! An unjust salvation would have been
none at all. The Lord found the Reconciliation–I will not say in the
sufferings of Christ, though that is true! I will not say in the death
of Christ, though that is true! But I will put it in Scriptural
words–and here we have it in 1 John 2:2! "He"–that is, Jesus,
Himself–"is the propitiation for our sins." The Sent One, in Himself,
as well as in all that He did and all that He suffered, is the
Reconciliation between God and man! "Herein is love!" In order that
there might be peace and love between man and God, God finds the
Sin-Offering! He becomes, Himself, the Atonement, that love might reign
supreme!

What seems to me the most wonderful thing of all is that the Lord Jesus
should deal, not only with our sorrow, but with our sin, for, "He is
the propitiation for our sins." That God should deal with us as to our
virtues, if we had any! That He should deal with us as to our love, if
we had any, might not seem so difficult. But that He should send His
Son to dwell with us as sinners–yes, and to come into contact with our
sins, and thus to take the sword, not only by its hilt, but by its
blade, and plunge it into His own heart, and die because of it–this is
a miracle of miracles! O Friends, Christ never gave Himself for our
righteousness, but He laid down His life for our SINS! He viewed us as
sinners when He came to save us. "Jesus Christ came into the world to
save sinners."

If I had not found Christ till this very minute, I hope I should find
Him, now, as my mind drinks in this doctrine! By God's Spirit there
seems to me to be such a window opened that even despair may see the
light, for if the thing which God sent His Son to deal with was the sin
of man, then I, even though I am nothing but a mass of loathsomeness
and sin, may yet enjoy the infinite love of God! Oh, guilty ones, hear
these words which are more sweet than music and more full of delight
than all poetry! Even the harps of angels never rise to higher measures
than these which I do so poorly and simply rehearse in your ears! Hear
these glad tidings, that God, who made the heavens and the earth–whom
you have of-fended–wills not that you die, but loves you so greatly
that He opens up a road of reconciliation through the body of His own
dear Son!

There was no other way by which you could be reconciled to God, for had
He reconciled you to a part of Himself and not to His justice, you had
not been, in very truth, at all reconciled to God. It is now to God
completely just, holy, whose anger burns against sin! It is to Him that
you are reconciled by faith in Christ Jesus, through the laying down of
His life for men! Oh that God would bless this to all who hear the glad
tidings!

III. We come at last to think of the CONSEQUENT OUTFLOW OF LOVE FROM
US–"Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought, also, to love one another."
Our love, then, to one another is simply God's love to us, flowing into
us and flowing out again. That is all it is! "Herein is love, not that
we loved God, but that God loved us," and then we love others. You have
seen a noble fountain in a continental city adorning a public square.
Look how the water leaps into the air! And then it falls into a
circular basin which fills and pours out its fullness into another,
lower down, and this, again, floods a third. Hear the merry splash as
the waters fall in showers and cataracts from basin to basin!

If you stand at the lower basin and look upon it and say, "Herein is
water," that is true, and will be true of the next higher one and so
forth. But if you would express the truth as to where the water really
is, you may have to look far away, perhaps upon a mountain's side, for
there is a vast reservoir from which pipes are laid to bring these
waters and force them to their height that they may descend so
beautifully. Thus the love we have to our fellow creatures drops from
us like the descending silvery cataract from the full basin–but the
first source of it is the immeasurable love of God which is hidden away
in His very essence–the love which never changes and never can be
diminished! "Herein is love!"

If you and I desire to love our fellow Christians and to love the
fallen race of man, we must be joined on to the aqueduct which conducts
love from this eternal source, or else we shall soon fail in love.
Observe, Brothers and Sisters, then, that as the love of God is the
source of all true love in us, so a sense of that love stimulates us.
Whenever you feel that you love God, you overflow with love to all
God's people! I am sure you do. It is when you get to doubt the love of
God that you grow hard and cold. But when you are fired with the love
of a dying Savior who gave Himself for you, you feel as if you loved
every beggar in the street–and you long to bring every harlot to
Christ's dear feet–you cannot help it!

Man, if Christ baptizes your heart into His love, you will be covered
with it and filled with it! Your love will respect the same persons as
God's love does, and for the same reasons. God loves men! So will you.
God loves them when there is no good in them, and you will love them in
the same way. Sometimes the wickedness of men kindles in the heart of a
true Christian a stronger affection for them. The deeper down they are,
the more they need a Savior. Did not our Moravian Brothers and Sisters
feel, when they went out as missionaries, that they would prefer to go,
first, to the most barbarous tribes? They said, "The more degraded they
are, the more they need a Savior." And should not the missionary spirit
make Believers feel that if men are sunk until they are as low as
brutes, and as savage as devils, that this is the stronger reason for
our being eager to bring them to Christ?

I hope that abominable spirit which used to come in among Christian
people has been kicked away to its father, the devil, where it ought to
be–I mean the spirit which despises the poor and the fallen! When I
have heard people say, "What is the good of looking after such
riff-raff?" I have been saddened. The Church of God feels that the
souls of the meanest are precious–that to save the most foul, the most
ignorant, the most degraded, the most brutalized man or woman that ever
lives is an objective worthy of the effort of the whole Church–since
God thought it worthy of the death of Jesus Christ that He might bring
sinners, dead in sin, to Himself! Brothers and Sisters, we will not
have grasped the Truth of God unless we feel that our love to men must
be practical, because God's love to us is so. His love did not pent up
like the waters in the secret caverns of the earth, but it welled up
like the waters in the days of Noah, when we read that the fountains of
the deep were broken up.

In the gift of the Lord Jesus we behold the reality of Divine love.
When we see the poor, we must not say "Be you warmed; be you filled; I
am sorry for you." But we must let our love relieve them from our
funds! If we see the ignorant, we must not say, "Dear me, the Church is
neglecting the masses. The Church must wake up." No, but we must bestir
ourselves and struggle, ourselves, to warn sinners. If there are any
near you who lie degraded, do not say, "I wish somebody would go after
them." Go yourself! Our love ought to follow the love of God in one
point, namely, in always seeking to produce reconciliation! It was to
this end that God sent His Son. Has anybody offended you? Seek
reconciliation. "Oh, but I am the offended party." So was God and He
went straight away and sought reconciliation. Brothers and Sisters, do
the same! "Oh, but I have been insulted." Just so! So was God–all the
wrong was towards Him, yet, "He sent His Son to be the propitiation for
our sins." "Oh, but the party is so unworthy." So are you. But "God
loved you and sent His Son." Go and write according to that copy.

I do not mean that this love is to come out of your own heart,
originally, but I do mean that it is to flow out of your heart because
God has made it to flow into it. You are one of those basins of the
fountain–love has poured into you from above–let it run over to those
who are below. Go forth at once and try and make reconciliation, not
only between

yourself and your friend, but between every man and God. Let that be
your objective! Christ has become man's Reconciliation and we are to
try and bring this Reconciliation near to every poor sinner that comes
in our path. We are to tell him that God in Christ is reconciled. We
are to say to him, "He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for
ours, only, but for the sins of the whole world." Mark that word! It
tallies with that other, "Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the
sin of the world." God is now able to deal on Gospel terms with the
whole race! We need never think that we shall meet with men to whom God
will not consent to be reconciled. The propitiation is such that
whoever comes to God shall be received through it. God is always within
to receive every soul that comes to Him by Jesus Christ. "God so loved
the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Your work and mine
is reconciliation and everything that tends that way!

When we have done all, what then? We shall have nothing to boast of!
Suppose a man should become so loving that he gave himself wholly up
for his fellow creatures and actually died for them–would he have
anything to boast of? Read my text over again. "Beloved, if God so
loved us, we ought, also, to love one another"–so that if you get to
the highest point of self-sacrifice, you will never be able to boast,
for you have only, then, done what it was your duty to have done! Thus
you see the highest grade of Christianity excludes all idea of
salvation by works, for when we come up to its utmost pitch, if we give
our body to be burned for love, yet, still, we have done no more than
it was our duty to have done, considering the tremendous obligations
under which the love of God has laid us.

If you had to manage the waterworks for the distribution of water all
over this city and there was a certain pipe into which you poured
water, but none ever came out at the other end, do you know what you
would do? You would remove it and say, "This does not suit my purpose.
I need a pipe that will give out as well as receive." That is exactly
what the Lord desires of us. Do not selfishly say, "I want to sit down
and enjoy the love of God. I shall never say a word to anybody about
Christ. I will never give a poor creature so much as a brass farthing,
but I want to sit down and be solaced with the love of God."

If you think thus, you are a plugged up pipe! You are of no use–you
will have to be taken out of the system of the Church–for the system
of love for the world requires open pipes through which Divine Love may
freely flow. May the Lord clear you and fill you, so that out of you
there may continually flow rivers of living water. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON-1 John 4. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
HYMN BOOK"–199, 782, 803.