In the thirteenth chapter of the book of
John, John 13, verse 1.
Now before the feast of the Passover, when
Jesus knew that his hour was come, that
he should depart out of this world unto
the Father, having loved his own which were
in the world, he loved them unto the
end.
That is a complete unit in itself, though
it's only the beginning of that chapter, and
the beginning of the story.
But it is a unit, and I want
to talk tonight on the truth found in
that verse.
Let us pray.
Now, Lord, we have entered tonight through thy
word a rich golden palace of carved ivory
and jewels of the sea and of the
mine, and all the beauty and all that
wealth and all that loveliness could ever bring.
And we simply don't feel ourselves worthy either
to speak of it or to hear about
it.
O Lord, this night we pray, help us
that we might be worthy to even think
about this verse, and that we might be
worthy to hear it, and that I, thy
servant, might be worthy to speak from it.
O Lord Jesus, who became sin that we
might become righteousness, who died that we might
live, who died and gave thyself that we
might be restored, help us this evening worthily
to hear and rightly to understand that we
might quickly obey it.
Lest this congregation, an important congregation, Lord, very
important in thy sight.
So wilt thou, we pray this night, by
the Spirit, speak deeply to us, for Christ's
sake.
Now, Jesus knew that his hour was come.
In some ways we living today, after the
passing of 1900 years, have an advantage over
those first believers who clustered fearfully and eagerly
around our Savior.
We have the advantage of those 1900 years
of history behind us.
We have the advantage of tradition.
They had none.
We have a long tradition.
We have what men call hindsight, that is,
we see back upon events, and what we
see enables us to interpret what they could
never foresee.
And then we have the New Testament scriptures
which were not in their possession, and we
have a downcoming of the Holy Spirit to
make those scriptures plain to us.
Those are the advantages which are ours which
they did not have who were gathered around
their Lord here in this story.
But in other ways we have some serious
disadvantages.
There has been a long passing of time,
and time always softens things.
If it happened long enough ago, it never
seems as important as if it had only
happened recently.
And this happened 19 centuries ago.
And then there is distance from where we
are.
Thousands of miles of water roll between us
and the little land where this took place.
And then there is the chilling effect of
familiarity.
When you have spoken a word often enough,
usually it loses its power over you.
And we have heard about his dying and
his rising until it has become so familiar
to us that it has lost its novelty,
and constant repetition has dulled our faculties so
that these things have become commonplace to us.
Hence it is impossible, I say that it
is impossible, for us to enter in and
to hear these words with anything like the
original meaning and with the charge of emotion
and feeling that must have been in the
heart of those who were present and in
the heart of the man who first wrote
these words.
Now before the feast of the Passover, when
Jesus knew that his hour was come, that
he should depart out of this world unto
the Father, having loved his own which were
in the world, he loved them unto the
end.
It is only by a work of the
Holy Spirit, it is only by humility and
penitence and long meditation and prayer and the
operation of the Holy Spirit in our hearts
that we are able to grasp this, able
to enter into it.
We can read it, but to enter into
it and feel it and sense its values,
I say that it is only by the
Spirit of God that we know what he
meant when he said his hour was come.
Now when his hour came, let's look a
little at what that hour brought to him.
It brought him the final rejection by his
fellow men.
Now we have so talked about it and
sung about it and thought about it that
it has excused itself of our minds, and
we do not know that the rejection of
our Lord by his brethren was an injurious
or painful thing to him.
Time and the passing of the years, familiarity,
these have taken the edge off of this
sharp razor.
This has taken the bite out of the
wine of meaning here, and we forget that
men were made for each other.
Human beings were not made like wolves to
be alone.
They were made for each other, and the
approval of and acceptance by our fellow men
is necessary to us.
It's necessary.
We must have it if we're going to
be completely normal.
Now in the upset condition of the world
since sin has entered, sometimes it is necessary
that men for a little while give up
the approval and acceptance by and of their
fellow men.
But that is an abnormal situation, and anybody
that can be rejected by his fellow men
and enjoy himself is not normal, because he
is violating the deepest laws of his nature.
He is violating the law of the community,
the law of the social company.
He is violating the very law that makes
heaven heaven, and it could make earth a
heaven if we only knew it.
When a man is forced to give up
the fellowship of men and find comfort in
God alone, he can do it.
David said, When my father and my mother
have cast me out, then the Lord will
take me up.
David was able to do it.
But David nevertheless wet his pillow with his
tears because he knew that the rejection by
his father and mother was not a normal
thing, and he could not take the rejection
of his fellow men easily, and he certainly
could not enjoy it.
I say that it's abnormal, and whoever enjoys
it is in some degree abnormal.
Rejection by men wrung the heart of Jesus
Christ our Lord.
He was rejected, and because he was rejected
he suffered.
And when he said his hour was come,
mine hour is come, he said the hour
of my rejection is come, when my heart
shall be torn and long furrows shall be
plowed down my soul, because those I love
will not love me.
Those that I trust will not trust me,
and those that I want to fellowship will
not fellowship me, and those that I receive
reject me.
Father, the hour is come, he said in
one place.
It says that when he knew that his
hour was come, the hour of his rejection
by his fellow men, but more than that,
the hour of betrayal by a former friend,
Judas, he was betrayed by this man who
had dipped in the dish with him and
who had gone up to the house of
God and sat beside him or stood beside
him while they sang the hymns.
He said, my own familiar friend, in one
place.
And when Judas came to betray him with
a kiss, he looked up and said reproachfully,
but sadly, friend, wherefore art thou come?
He did not call him by any proper
name that might have been his, a son
of the devil.
He said friend.
Later he explained that he was a son
of perdition and went to his own place.
But here he called him by his name
friend, and he was betrayed by that friend.
Now, you tell me that to walk with
a man and know a man or anyone,
any human being, and have friendship and let
their souls be blended, and then suddenly to
have that friend turn and betray, you tell
me that that's not a sad, an awful,
painful thing it is, and Jesus went through
it.
So that his hour was come, the hour
of his betrayal, and the hour of his
denial by still a closer friend, Peter.
To be denied, to have to walk out
into company and to have someone meaningfully, now
as a joke or in fun, we might
do anything, and everybody understands it in good
nature, but this was not in fun.
When Jesus was denied by Peter, and when
Peter said, I never knew him, he said
it and meant it to believe it.
And this was by a friend.
To stand up in company and have someone
to save his own life, deny that he
ever even knew you, this hurts.
It's possible, I suppose, for a man to
be so hardened in sin and so deep
in his own pride and iniquity and egotism,
that it might not hurt him.
But as he of Jesus, it could not
so be said.
Our Lord Jesus Christ was as sensitive as
the apple of his eye, as sensitive as
his own heart.
And so when Peter, his friend, denied that
he knew him, this was a pain to
the Lord Jesus Christ.
The hour had come for betrayal and denial
and rejection, but worse did come for the
sentence by his own people.
And when they cried, let him be crucified,
it was the ultimate not only rejection, it
was the final sentence of his own people
upon him.
Society had declared that he wasn't fit to
live.
Let him be crucified, let him be executed,
they said.
And then there came the crucifixion, and when
he knew that his hour was come, the
hour of the crucifixion by the soldiers.
Who can explain this?
For 1900 years men have tried it.
Orators and men of great eloquence have sought
to make us understand.
Year after year and year after year, they
go through the stations of the cross and
try by songs and by every method known
to try to recreate and rethink and visualize
the sufferings of Jesus on the cross.
Nobody can ever do that.
There are some things that you will never
be able to understand intellectually.
You will never understand them until you go
through them.
You must live through them to know what
they mean.
Jesus, our Lord, was crucified by the soldiers
in between two thieves, and no imagination can
picture it.
So let us pass over it in reverent
brevity and say very little.
And then he was forsaken, forsaken by his
Father, and said, Let this cup pass from
me.
What was that cup?
It was a cup of complete forsakenness, of
abandon.
He was abandoned by his Father.
And he cried, My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?
And so terrible was this, and so real,
that it had stood for more than a
thousand years in their sacred scriptures as a
prophetic utterance of David in a painful and
fearful moment.
But when it was uttered again, it was
uttered by the Lord Jesus.
Father, the hour has come.
Jesus knew that his hour was come, the
hour of his rejection, the hour of his
betrayal, the hour of his denial, the hour
of his execution, and the hour when he
should be forsaken of his God, and the
hour of his dying.
For all this led finally to what the
good lady called the hard dying of Jesus.
It led to his hard dying.
O sacred head, wrote the German poet, O
sacred head now wounded, by grief and shame
bowed down, O sacred head, what glory!
But that sacred head was bowed with shame
and grief under the crown of God and
the rejection of his fellow men.
And is it any wonder we sing, What
language can I borrow to thank thee, dearest
friend, for this thy dying sorrow and pity
without end?
What language can we borrow?
Where can we get it?
All the languages of the world would not
do it.
And this was his hour.
Father, the hour is come.
Now it says that he knew this.
Jesus knew that his hour was come.
And knowing this, and having loved his own,
he loved them unto the end.
I have been reverently going over this this
last week.
And I have been searching into the translations
and back into the original to know what
actually the Holy Ghost said here.
Having loved his own, he loved them through
to the end.
And I find that the word end there
is a word also that is sometimes close
to being used, or close to the word
used, by when it says uttermost or utterly.
And one translation says, having loved his own
that were in the world, he loved them
utterly.
He loved them utterly.
Now, usually, love doesn't last that long.
It isn't unto the end, and it isn't
utterly.
Usually, I say.
Usually, having loved our own, we love them
unto the first disappointment, the first time they
disappoint us.
Having loved our own, we love them to
that time when interest begins to flag and
people lose interest, or some new interest comes
to sidetrack the mind.
Having loved our own, we love them until
absence dims down that love, and memory takes
the place of love.
Having loved our own, we love them sometimes
to the first inconvenience or to the loss
of something.
Having loved our own, we love them until
they cost us something, until we lose something
by our love.
But having loved his own, he loved them
utterly and unto the end.
He loved them unto the death with the
consequence suffering that we have enumerated above here,
the rejection of his fellow men.
And he knew that to love his people
meant to love them unto the rejection by
his fellow men.
And though this violated all the deep laws
of his human life, he still loved them
utterly and on unto the end.
He knew that it meant betrayal by a
friend and denial by another friend.
It meant to be sentenced by society, his
own people, to die.
He knew it meant crucifixion and hard dying.
But having loved his own, he loved them
on unto the end.
And it says, he loved his own having
loved his own who were in the world.
I want you to hear this.
Having loved his own who were in the
world, these that he loved were not polished
saints.
They were not shining gems of spiritual perfection.
They were not cut diamonds of holiness.
They were not silver and gold bands of
beauty wrought by the lapidary or the goldsmith.
These were those capable of betraying and denying
and running away and being filled with fear
and doubting.
Having loved his own who were in the
world, and I draw this conclusion that if
he loved them when they were in the
world, he loves us when we are in
the world.
He does not wait until that day when
we shall walk in in all the holy
poise of spiritual dignity that belongs to the
angels above.
But he loves us now in our present
state and in our present condition.
Though we love up till the first disappointment,
but he loves with a thousand disappointments, and
there isn't anybody here at this hour that
hasn't disappointed Jesus somewhere.
There isn't anybody here that our Lord hasn't
felt this sharp pang of disappointment, if he
indeed in his human life, I know he
feels disappointment.
In his divinity, his deity, there's no such
thing as disappointment, because disappointment carries with it
some idea of lack of knowledge.
But Jesus, since he had all knowledge, could
not properly be disappointed.
But his human heart, no doubt, was many
times grieved, and thus we say disappointed, by
an extension of the meaning of the term.
But he loved us in spite of the
disappointment.
And having loved his own, he loved them
on, past the time when absence was, they
became absent, he became absent, and he left
the world, and we are here in the
world, and his absence from the world in
his physical body doesn't in any way dim
down the fires of his love.
Neither does his inconvenience, nor neither does any
other thing.
The loss of every dear thing he had,
including his own life itself, did not dim
down the fires of his love.
Having loved his own, he loved them on
unto the end.
And Jesus knew, he knew that the time
had come when he should go through this
tunnel of hell, fire, and rise out of
the suffering of it all unto God, and
that he should go unto God who had
sent him.
He knew that.
Jesus knew that, and yet he braved it
and endured it.
And he knew that he was going back
to the Father because he knew that he
was going back to the Father, and because
of his great love he braved this and
endured it.
Now, I want you to notice that God
never asks us to endure without end.
He never asks us to endure without end.
Whatever you may be enduring, it will have
an end.
And he never asks us to endure without
purpose.
Whatever you are enduring has a high design.
That is why I cannot find in my
heart any sympathy, whatever, any intellectual sympathy, for
those who say there is no future life,
but we ought to learn to endure and
be disciplined now.
We ought to learn what is right and
do it now.
We ought to do good for its own
sake and be right for rightness' sake.
And yet I do not believe in any
future, but I believe we ought to do
good now.
I cannot go along with those who thus
talk to tell me that I am to
go through the fires of this world, to
endure the pains that the flesh is heir
to, to endure bereavement and betrayal and disappointment
and denial and rejection and the sufferings of
the body and the weariness of the flesh
and the pains of the mind, to endure
all this without a purpose in it, and
then die and say, Thank God that fellow
is out of his trouble.
No more suffering for him, no more discipline,
no more hardships, no more tribulation, no more
worry, no more pains of mind or anguish
of body.
If that's all there is to it, the
God that made that kind of thing is
not a God at all, but a devil.
For he made helpless creatures to endure without
purpose.
So is not our Heavenly Father.
He made us with a high design.
He held his own blazing heart before his
eyes and said, Be, they'll be like that
before I'm done with them, and they'll have
eternity to be like that in them.
So Paul could say that the life afflictions,
which are but for a moment, were for
us a far more exceeding weight of glory.
So Jesus Christ could walk into and endure
all this suffering which was anguish beyond imagination.
He could do it because he knew there
would be an end and a purpose, that
it wouldn't be forever and it wouldn't be
in vain.
And I tell you, Christian, to endure a
while and pray a while and believe a
while and trust a while, it'll not always
endure.
There's a better day coming, I know, I
know.
It will not always, not always be so.
And that trouble you're in is for your
holiness, that you might be partaker of God's
holiness, for your sanctification, that you might be
purged and purified and the fires might burn
out the foreign material.
But it won't be endless.
He knew the hour was come when he
should leave the world.
Ah, the leaving of the world was the
anguish, and go unto his Father.
But there was the reward.
And it only took six hours to leave
the world, but he has a million eternities
to be with the Father.
Jesus knew, it says here.
I want you to know, my friends, that
Jesus Christ died redemptively.
And he's the only one in the wide
world that ever died redemptively.
In the Old Testament it knew they died
as martyrs.
And that martyr first, whose eagle eye could
pierce beyond the gloom, Stephen, and all the
martyrs that have died for the cross of
Christ down the years, and they're still dying.
And the blood of the martyr still flows.
And yet not one drop of the blood
of the martyr ever redeemed a human being.
If you could collect in some vast sea
all the blood that ever flowed from the
day of righteous Abel to this hour, not
all that blood could save any sinner, not
one of them.
Not one human being ever died redemptively.
Only Jesus died redemptively.
He did not get himself into a tight
place by unwisdom or ignorance or recklessness or
weakness or accident.
Many a martyr has died by accident.
He didn't want to die.
But he was a Christian, and he got
himself in a jam, for Christ's sake, and
he took his head off.
And he didn't want to lose his head.
He didn't do it voluntarily.
He testified voluntarily, but took the head off.
He won't hang on to that a while
yet.
But they took it from him, or they
threw him to the lions or let him
rot in prison or starved him or impaled
him on stakes or sewed him in a
sack and threw him into the sea.
History will tell you about that.
But all of that, the fellows got themselves
into jams.
They couldn't help it.
They didn't want to die like that, but
they did.
They'd rather have died like that than give
up their faith in the Lord Jesus.
But they didn't have any pleasure in it,
and they didn't want it.
And there have been a lot of people
who died by accident, and a lot died
foolishly.
And I have no doubt that some of
the Saints who have died for Christ and
who have gone off to heaven expecting a
huge crown will find their crown somewhat reduced
in size by the fact that there was
a whole lot that's human in it and
a whole lot that didn't have a high
spirituality there.
They died for a certain doctrine, or they
died for a certain denomination, or they died
because they wouldn't give up on a certain
interpretation.
And I suppose there in heaven God will
count the martyrs all right and reward them,
but I don't think the reward will be
quite as rich as those who died for
bigger and vaster and grander things.
But anyway, Jesus was not a martyr caught
by his religion in a jam, forgotten into
it through weakness, or caught asleep.
No, no.
He walked straight into it with his eyes
open, charmed by his own love, compelled by
the beatings of his own heart, written by
his own affection for his people.
Having loved his own, he loved them unto
the end, and he walked straight into it.
He loved them utterly, and though in his
wisdom he knew that it would be betrayal
and denial and sentence and ostracism and crucifixion
and death.
Having loved his own, he loved them utterly,
and with his eyes open went straight out
there.
What led him out there?
Charmed he was, charmed he was.
Compelled he was, and impelled and driven, and
he could no more have stopped short of
the cross than he could have violated any
other deep law of his own nature.
He was driven out there, led out there.
He was brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and it was not the Romans that
brought him, nor the Jews that brought him.
It was his own incurable love that brought
him.
It was the silver nail driven in his
own heart with your name engraved on the
head of it, and he couldn't get away
from it.
In Hebrews it says that he's a fixture.
What is man that thou art mindful of
him?
And I've looked up the Hebrew and Greek,
and I find that it means a fixture
in the mind, something driven in the mind
like a silver nail.
So men are fixed and driven in the
mind of God and clenched there like a
nail, and God can't escape.
He's impaled upon his own love, and it
was this that drove him to the cross.
And when he died, in one sense I
suppose he died on a wooden tree, but
in another sense he died on a golden
cross, for he died impaled not by the
iron nails of Rome, but by the gold
nails of his own affection.
And it was his own love that the
cross where he was nailed, and it was
his own love that were the nails that
drove him there.
With our physical eyes and ears and fingers
we see and hear and touch the physical
cross where he died, and men did see
it and hear it and hear him and
hear the nail hammers ring out on the
nail heads.
But through the eye of faith we know
what it was.
We know it was the gold cross of
his mighty eternal love, and we know that
it was love that nailed him there.
He, the God Almighty, he, the God Almighty,
could not have twisted loose from that cross
and with one quick word burned every soldier
in the legions of Caesar and destroyed them
with one breath of his mouth and turned
on Israel and destroyed Israel with the brightness
of his beaming.
All that he could have done.
Not all the iron soldiers of iron Rome
could have nailed him on that cross, nor
kept him there.
Why did he go helplessly out there to
die?
He did it because having loved his own,
he loved them utterly.
He loved them utterly.
I am not worthy of such a love
as this, and I suppose you feel the
same, I hope you do.
But I am not going to back out
because I am not worthy of it and
refuse to accept it and refuse to believe
it.
I do believe it and I do accept
it.
And it's up to us to try to
be worthy of such utter love.
It's up to us to put out of
our minds everything that would be contrary to
such utter love.
Absence hasn't changed it.
Passing of the centuries hasn't changed it.
The years have not changed it.
Changes in nature and the changes in history
have not changed that love.
He walked straight into it, knowing where it
was going and knowing when and knowing what
it would mean.
He walked straight into it.
Now, because he did, he doesn't want your
pity.
I said around Easter time, around the holy
season, as they call it, which is a
misnomer, for it isn't any holier than any
other day.
Who was it that said, Remember the weekday
to keep it holy?
Somebody gave us a new commandment, Remember the
weekday to keep it holy.
I think he said something there all right.
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy
is good.
Remember all the other days to keep them
holy is better.
But he doesn't want our gratitude, our pity.
He wants our gratitude.
He doesn't want us to pity him.
We have so many songs that pity the
Lord.
Pity him.
Be solos, get up.
For me, for me, for me, for me.
And I get weary of it myself.
I do.
I get tired of it.
The music is usually set in some minor
key or to some slow, funereal, heavy affair.
And they go into that and they pity
Jesus.
He doesn't want your pity.
He wants your gratitude.
He didn't pity himself.
He pitied himself five minutes.
He never could have got the consent of
his own heart to die.
He pitied you, but he didn't pity himself.
When some woman yelled out her pity to
him, he said, Don't pity me, ladies.
Pity these poor people.
Pity this poor dry tree.
Pity Israel, but don't waste your pity on
me.
We pity the man who is being taken
unwillingly to die, but we honor the man
who goes out with his chin up, knowing
he's going to die, and knowing why, and
impelled by the mighty passion within his own
breast.
So he doesn't want your pity, but, oh,
he wants your gratitude.
Now let's think a little bit in the
next five minutes, in closing, about our love
for him.
How far does it go?
Is it unto the end, and is it
utterly?
You'll never need to question the love of
Jesus.
Having loved his own who were in the
world, and knowing that he was leaving this
world by way of the cross, he loved
them unto the end.
But what about our love toward him?
Does it end where inconvenience begins?
I think it does for some Christians.
I believe that.
It ends where inconvenience begins.
And the average Christian evangelical who says he's
born again, the average one, the rank and
file of us, we serve the Lord at
our convenience.
And where we're inconvenienced, our love isn't quite
big enough, quite strong enough.
I don't know whether anything humorous ever yet
illustrated anything spiritual, but they do tell about
the man who wrote a love letter so
warm and affectionate, it was dripping and red
-hot when it arrived at the home of
the young lady, and it said, and I'll
be over to see it tonight.
I'd go through blood and fire, and I'll
be to see it tonight if it doesn't
rain.
And people smile about that, but when that
gets into the Church of Christ, it's not
funny, it's tragic.
I love thee, O soul, I know not
how my transport's to control, but it's raining
and I'll stay home.
I love thee, soul, I know not how
my transport's to control, but if I give
commissions, I can't buy the new car.
Goodbye, Lord.
I like the feel of a good car
under my feet.
I love thee, soul, I know not how
my transport's to control, but if I don't
get to sing a solo, I'll sulk for
six months.
I love thee, soul, I know not how
my transport's to control, but if it's a
question between eating or praying, sleeping or praying,
or anything else in the love of God,
we serve our own convenience.
He loved us utterly, and I'm happy to
tell you he loved you anyhow, and he'll
love me anyhow, and he'll love the ones
I'm talking about anyway.
And I say to him, I love thee,
so I know not how my transport's to
control, but I want a reputation, Lord.
But he loved me anyhow, and loved me
utterly, knowing that about me.
And there's the astonishing thing.
Only God could do that.
An archangel couldn't do that.
Only God could do that, because only God
is infinite.
But he wants us to love him as
much as he loved us.
Somebody said, Mr. Tozer, how can I love
him?
How can I?
How can I find in my cold heart
any love?
Can I reach into a cold stove, where
the fires have been out for six thousand
years, and hope to warm anything?
Well, let's illustrate by the sun and the
moon.
We walk out into the June evening and
say there's going to be a beautiful moon
tonight, and by nine or ten o'clock
the moon is shining in its silver brilliance
down upon the world.
We take out a piece of paper and
say, I can read.
I can read in the moonlight.
And we tell some friend, last night I
actually could read in the moonlight.
And yet that moon is as cold and
as dead as your heart.
That moon is as cold as this slag
that's been pulled out of the furnace down
here in Indiana, in Gary.
Cold as ashes and as dead.
And that whole moon, there isn't one spark
of fire, nor one spark of anything that's
radioactive or alive.
It's cold, dead cinder.
And yet you say that you read by
the very light of that same moon.
Where did you get it?
Ah, moonlight is sunlight reflected, that's all.
A great sun shining in its brilliant glory
down around the edge of the earth where
we can't see it, shines upon that moon
and the moon catches it and reflects it
back on our dark earth, and we smile
and sing about the beautiful moon.
And yet that moon has nothing of itself.
It borrows, it borrows it from the sun
and sheds it down on the earth, and
so it is with the love of God.
My heart in its own nature, by nature,
is as cold and as dead as the
slag out of the furnace a year later.
Cold and hard and harsh and hopeless.
But the love of God shines down upon
it and then it's transformed and gives back
the love to him and to the world,
and so the love I have is his
love reflected.
Not that we loved him, but that he
loved us and gave his son to be
the propitiation for our sins.
So you and I are reflectors only.
You can't carry an illustration too far, and
of course I'm only illustrating.
Your heart does not and will not remain
always as cold as slag.
God will warm and refresh and recreate and
renew your heart, but always the only love
you'll have will be his love reflected.
Always, always.
None of it will originate with you.
It will all originate in him, catch fire
in your own heart, and go back to
the poor world and back to God who
gave it.
So that's how we can love.
We can love with his love.
We can love with reflected love.
We can love because he loved us.
And if we'd meditate on this long enough,
perhaps the fires in our own heart would
begin to glow and we'd reflect back the
fires of his love, which is the only
fire that we have.
But you know that our love doesn't go
much beyond convenience, and it doesn't go very
much beyond rejection.
There aren't very many who would be rejected
for Jesus' sake, and there aren't very many
who would be denied for Jesus' sake, and
there aren't very many who would suffer loss
for Jesus' sake.
There aren't very many who would sacrifice for
Jesus' sake.
Not very many.
We sit here and sing and preach.
That's about all we do at this church,
sing and preach and do good to the
poor, give to missions.
We scorn the dance and liquor and the
rest.
But you know that it's entirely possible, more
than possible but not quite probable, that we
may be carrying in our hearts sins as
offensive to God as the dance in the
church parlor Sunday night.
Jealousy, animosity, malice, bad temper, unforgiving spirit, pride.
We may sit here Sunday nights and be
proud of the fact that we don't show
movies in this church Sunday night, and yet
God may find more tolerable some people who
do show movies.
He may find more compatibility with some who
do dance tonight.
And I'm not arguing for movies nor dance,
either one.
They come in, I go out, and don't
come back.
But I'm only saying that sins aren't always
visible sins, and the worst and most heinous
and offensive sins may be sins of our
hearts, the sins of selfishness, the sins of
pride, the sins of self-righteousness, the sins
of contempt, feeling of contempt for others.
Those things may be as serious and are
as serious as any sin of the flesh.
Now, it isn't an either-or.
It isn't a choice.
You must either have one or the other.
You don't have to take your choice.
Between being a sinner inside and a sinner
outside, you don't have to take your choice.
You don't have to be any kind of
a sinner.
You can give up the world and its
ways and put away in behind you all
of this insufferable foolishness and still have a
clean heart, and a clean mind, and a
tolerant disposition, and a friendly spirit, and a
charitable soul.
You can have in you all the love
of God and still hate all these other
things.
It isn't an either-or.
I don't say you must either choose to
sin inside or outside.
You don't have to choose either.
He that is born of God keepeth himself,
and that wicked one toucheth him not.
So we can keep our hearts gentle and
kind and friendly and tolerant toward everybody.
Pity the people who don't see it as
we see it or don't see the truth
as God's people see it, not just us
here, certainly, and yet can love them and
be compassionate toward them and friendly.
And yet I wonder how far our love
goes.
I'm bothered about it myself.
I just wonder how far it goes, this
love.
He loved us utterly until the end.
And we love him limitedly until we get
to the first jam, where it's a choice
between loving him or loving ourselves, and then
we love ourselves.
Dear God, how long will it be?
Miss Bailey, who is a managing editor, sends
something every week back to my office two
or three times a week.
She keeps a stream of stuff coming in
both directions.
She said in a little note that the
missionary, so-and-so, had sent that article
and didn't like it, that it was condensed
and put on the back page without his
name on it.
Well, she said, I guess he was human,
and then added, is there anybody that's selfless?
A missionary is supposed to be very saintly,
have two or three invisible crowns just an
inch or two above his head, and yet
he was jealous or mad because he didn't
get his name on his piece.
Is anybody selfless?
What do you think about it?
I want to be.
I want to be just as little of
myself and as much of God as is
possible in this life.
Don't you?
Do you, or don't you?
Do you want to be reduced just as
far as you can until they can't offend
you and can't hurt you, can't miss you,
can't make you feel bothered?
You want just so little of yourself, God
to reduce you so little that there's anything
there to be jealous of or be offended
about?
If you do, I'm preaching to you by
the cross, by the blood of the covenant,
by the cross, by the Holy Ghost.
God will reduce you.
Do you want to be reduced so that
your love shall go on and be as
great as his love, because it's his love
reflected?
Having loved him, we love him utterly.
Oh, brothers and sisters, I want to love
him utterly.
Do you?