EVERLASTING love! This love can be only divine. Everlasting! We can hardly apply this word to any earthly thing, unless, indeed, speaking poetically, we refer to the " everlasting hills," or something, which by comparison with the essentially transient, is stable and permanent; but divine love shall never decay, and when the hills are no more, and when this earth shall have fallen out of existence, it shall still be everlasting. As the year comes to its close, and many memories of what once was, but now is no more, are before us, and as we lay our finger upon our own hearts and consider how short our time is, we do well to consider that which is everlasting.
The everlasting love of the everlasting God is a magnificent theme for the heart. Here is a love which has ever loved; here is a love which never changes, and which no future shall terminate.
"I have loved thee” are the inspired words, telling us the heart of the Lover and the object of His love. “I have loved thee with an everlasting love "—yes, with the love of His own heart, and the unchangeableness of His own glory. And as these gracious words were addressed to His Israel of old, so are they the believer's now, for all the promises of God are to us yea and amen in Christ Jesus.
The prophet who was inspired to utter these divine words was he who mourned so bitterly the transgressions and perversity of Israel, and at a time when Israel was suffering under the chastening hand of Jehovah. But at that very time, as God looked upon Israel's affliction, He said, " Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." (Jer. 31:33The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. (Jeremiah 31:3).)
As the year closes, and as life draws towards its close, there is a great rest for the Christian in filling his soul with these words of his God, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love." Our individual retrospect must be one of shame and humiliation; we have nothing to say of ourselves that is worthy; but He is love. Our love has too often been faint and almost imperceptible, but His love has ever been everlasting. Such is the character of the love wherewith He loves His people. Here let us abide; His love shall be our dwelling-place.