"Hymn, 'Jesus loves me this I know, For the Bible tells me so'," said the young clear voice. They sang it through.
And now I am going to give out my text "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16).
It was given out something after the fashion of his father perhaps, but the little face was all aglow, and he evidently loved the Word of God, and the love of Christ.
A few chairs arranged before him, on one of which sat his younger brother—and I think on another, the old nurse—comprised his audience.
"Now Harold, how do you know that God loves you?”
Harold shook his head, he could not tell, "Well," said the earnest voice, "You are not in heaven, are you Harold?”
"No." Harold knew certainly that he was not in heaven.
"And you are not in hell, are you, Harold?”
"O! No." Harold was quite startled.
"Then you are in the world aren’t you? And God so loved the world. So you see how you know that God loves, you," triumphantly concluded the little fellow, and whether Harold saw it or not, the sermon was at an end.
Only a child's "pretend preaching." But how quickly the young heart had learned the right to claim that wondrous love.
Reader, do you know it?—God loves you.
You, infidel, perhaps, hating Christ's name, and spending all your intellect to prove His word a myth.
You, drunkard, trying to deaden your sorrows by drink.
You, half wild with despair, not knowing where to turn except to death, and afraid of that. Dear ones, it is not such as Joseph, Daniel, and David that God is thinking of when He tells us by the Holy Spirit, that "Christ died for the ungodly," and "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”
Although we know all whom Scripture speaks of were sinners. But it does not say, "God loved those who were striving to follow Him"—but "the world." The same world that closed around the cross, after crying, "Away with Him." "Away with Him.”
The world that today denies and blasphemes His precious name. All day long while the heart, is a (perhaps, alas! willing) receptacle of Satan's thoughts and ways, God's love is brooding over you. He sent His blessed One to call "sinners to repentance." Not "the righteous." No! Thank God. For then none 'would have been saved. But sinners, He came "to seek, and to save.”
O! that everything might echo this as you go along, and that you might be forced almost, to accept that love, and hide yourself under the precious blood once shed while still He "waits to be gracious," to the world He died for.