Address—A.M. Barry
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Hymn #109 Jesus, that name is love. Jesus our Lord Jesus all means above. Jesus the Lord, our Lord, our all must be nothing that's good. Have we nothing apart from thee, Jesus our Lord?
As Son of Man, it was Jesus the Lord. Thou gaze thy life for us.
Jesus our Lord, great was indeed thy love, all other loves about.
Love thou is dearly true, Jesus our Lord. Not knowing at all what Brother Lundeen had before him to speak from this afternoon, I find that I had very much the same subject before my heart, and that is to bring before our souls.
Something of the love of Christ.
That passes whole understanding and the verse that I will ask you to turn to.
To introduce the subject I have on my heart, as in the first Epistle of John and the 4th chapter, the 19th verse.
Of first John four. We love him.
Because he first loved us.
Or another translation we love because he first loved us.
And what I had on my heart, beloved Saints, else to speak.
Of our love to Christ as the fruit of his love to us Can all that the law made its demands of man. And if you'll turn to the 12Th chapter of Mark, you'll see what the law requires the 12Th of March.
And the 28th verse.
And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, What is the first commandment of all?
And Jesus answered him. The first of all that commands is hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is 1 Lord, and thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
And with all thy mind, and with all thy straight, This is the first commandment, and the 2nd is like, namely this. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandments greater than these. The scribes said unto him, Well, master, thou hast said the truth. There is one God, and there is none other but He.
And to love him with all the heart and with all we understand, with all the soul, and with all the strength.
And to love his neighbor as himself is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God.
And no man after that there's asked him any more questions.
Now here was a man that answered discreetly.
When the Lord quoted the two great commandments of the law.
But he had to say, Thou art not far.
From the Kingdom of God. He couldn't say you were in the Kingdom of God.
For in order, beloved friends, to be in the Kingdom of God, as the Lord plainly said to Nicodemus, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
And so, if you'll turn to the 4th chapter, the first Epistle of John again.
In the seventh verse we read Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God.
And everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.
You see, we must have the divine nature which is love, before we can know what love is.
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That young ruler that came to Jesus and spoke discreetly hadn't experienced the new birth.
But when we are born of God, then we have a nature that loves God.
In the 13th chapter of First Corinthians, we get a wonderful description of love.
We might just turn to it and read a few verses in that that chapter the apostle says, though I speak with a tongue of men and of angels, and have not charity or love, and become a sounding brass and a tinkling symbol.
Then there he goes on to say on the fourth verse.
Charity or love suffereth long in his kind. Love envious not love wanteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not a role, is not easily provoked. Think it's no evil. Rejoices not an iniquity, but in rejoices in the truth. Beareth all things, believeth all things.
All things endureth all things.
As soon as we read these words, we're conscious that we're getting a description of the Lord Jesus Himself.
Because He was divine love manifested in the sad world of sin. But marvelous beloved, when we're born of God, we have the very same nature as our blessed Lord.
So that we can exercise the very things.
That we see in all their perfection in that Blessed One.
Now when you look again at this 4th chapter, first John.
Here we get a great contrast with what you get in the Law of Moses.
You see, the law demanded that man should love God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength.
Our brother Blount used to say you can't even think of God for one minute, for 60 seconds without a lot of other thoughts come trooping through your head, much less loving with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. We can't make ourselves love God.
The fact is, until born of God, we have a nature that hates God, that wants to get out of his company, out of his presence. And you know, for a Sinner away from God, there's nothing but the darkness of hell left for his soul. He'd be miserable if he could be in heaven because he has a nature that's completely out of harmony.
Where the love that fills that glorious scene where Christ is the center.
Now let's look at the 10th verse of this 4th chapter John and draw the contrast. You say, you see the law says thou shalt love the Lord thy God. Now here's the way grace speaks through the apostles here in his love, not that we love God.
But that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
So instead of demanding that man should love God, it tells the poor Sinner that it doesn't because he loved God, but because he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. And that takes us right to the cross of Calvary where we see that Blessed one.
In that midnight darkness.
Bearing the awful load of our sins, forsaken because God hates sin and could not look at his only Son when he was a sin bearer there, in order that our souls might be saved.
Then the second commandment comes in. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another. You'll see the demands of the law was a selfish love. That is, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
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Out of grace, speak. If God so loved us, what a different motive that is for our love for our brothers.
Because of the great love that God has shown towards us, it awakens in our hearts a desire that we might show that love to those objects so dear to His heart. It's a faithful love, a love that would not for a moment encourage in any way.
One could go on in the disobedient, a wrong course, but still.
If it is exercised according to the heart of Christ, it'll be like the love that Joseph showed to his brethren when he spoke roughly to them. He went away and wept over them, and it was only when there was a full work of repentance in their hearts that he put his arms around them and drew them right through his.
Bosom.
Now it's the It's that love that has.
Won these hearts of ours, you know, the law never saved anybody.
All the law could do was condemn the Sinner. All the law could do was to prove his law's condition and leave him in a state where he would be awakened to his need, so that Christ might come in as a Savior and reveal Himself.
Through his guilty soul. Let's just look at a verse in the second chapter of Galatians.
The 20th verse. Now the apostle Paul is speaking here, and he says, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the place I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
When you consider that these were the words.
Of the greatest hater that Christ ever had in this world, I was all of Tarsus.
Think of him delivering up men to prison, and when they were put to death he gave his voice against them.
He persecuted them in every synagogue and compelled them to blasphemy.
Being exceeding mad against them here. Follow them even to strange cities.
Think of a man compelling a poor frightened human being to blasphemy the name he loved, under fear of the consequence of his not submitting to this persecutor.
Oh, what a history that man had. And yet it was the love of the very one that he hated that broke down that proud Jew.
And brought him to the knees of Christ. On the road to Damascus they are shone a light from heaven.
Above the brightness of the sun, and fall into the earth, he heard a voice saying, Saul, Saul, why persecute us? Thou need.
All to think that those Saints of God were so united to that blessed man, and the glory that touched one member of the Lord Jesus was to touch Christ himself. He was broken completely down.
It wasn't the thunders of Sinai.
That broke down that rebellious man, but the love of that one that he hated so greatly.
So he expresses his feelings in this way. Who? The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
And so, beloved, the 1St all important.
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Subject we have before us.
Has your needs and know.
Christ as your Savior.
It's been said, and rightly said, that you may die unsaved, but you can never die unloved.
God loves you, and He so loved you that he gave His only begotten Son.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
That's the way God proved his love in giving the dearest object of his heart's affection.
And letting him go to that shameful cross in order to see your precious soul.
And it's that which wins for the goodness of God, as we heard in the other address, is what brings the center to repentance.
If God loves the poor Sinner like me in such a way.
What an awful Sinner I must be, what an awful condition I must be in, if it required that agony of the cross, if it required the forsaking of God.
On the cross, those hours of fall and darkness in order to put away my sins.
There is nothing, friends, like the cross of Christ. It not only gives us to see God's love fully shown out, but it shows me what I am as a loss and guilty Sinner. It required all that agony of the blessed eternal Son of God, the very Creator of heaven and earth, to pull away one sin out of God's presence.
Well.
We find that.
It's love that wins the poor Sinner and brings them to a repentance, just as it did to the apostle here. But you know, when he says we love me, he's not.
In any way suggesting that others have not the full right and title to enjoy the same love that he enjoyed in his soul. And they went riding through the Ephesians. He says that Christ loved the church.
And gave himself for it. In these that carries us even farther than his death. He not only gave his life.
But all beloved when he rose, he went into heaven with uplifted arms, uplifted hands, and he's been serving. He has redeemed ones his church said he purchased at such a cost.
To all his days of it, his histories and history and wandering in this world.
And there the apostle John might just turn to Revelation One for a moment.
John here is telling us about.
The way he was addressed there on the Isle of Patmos.
And he says in this in the fourth verse, Grace be unto you, and peace from him which is, and from him which was, and which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, see, the three persons of the Godhead are brought to our attention. And then he says, And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness.
The first begotten of the dead and the Prince of the kings of the earth. And then it's just as though John's heart will welled up with the delight of.
Of having that glorious person before him, he says unto him that loved us.
And voiced us from our sins in his own blood. Now in this place who loved us is plural. And so beloved. We can think of the love of Christ in a collective way. We can also think of it in an individual way. How precious that is, how you dear, for young people.
And older ones too. Remember that Christ loves you individually.
He knows all about you.
He knows all the mistakes we have made in our lives, but they have never in any way.
Dampen that burning love that he has for his own all. He loves us as a company. He loves this company. He delights to see a company like this gather together to be over his precious word. But every individual who knows.
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And loves the Savior is an object of His tenderness and dearest love.
I was thinking of a verse in the Song of Solomon. Our brother London was giving us some thoughts from that book, so I'll turn to it again and call your attention to something in the second chapter of of Song of Solomon, say 14th verse.
Oh my God, that art in the clefts of the rock.
In the secret places of the stairs.
Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.
The dove is the affection that burns we find in the 4th chapter of this same book. He says in the first verse, Behold our fair my love, thou hast doves eyes within thy locks.
You ever see a dove sitting on its nest? The lovely side?
You'll find his eyes fixed in One Direction.
And what is that direction? It's the direction where it's me disappeared. The meat has gone off to find food for his his companion. And there she sits on the nest, waiting for his return.
For the love of it, may we be like that in our affections for Christ, with our eyes looking onward.
To that glorious moment when he who shall come will come, and will not carry, when we shall hear His voice, when we shall see his face.
You see the dozens in the cliffs of the rock.
Remember hearing dear old Brother Dunlop say one time that you could just read this like this, all thou who hath affection for me.
Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice. You know the Lord delights to hear your voice and mine prayer and praise.
Very sweet in the assembly for brothers who are LED of the Spirit. Don't be too timid, brothers. Some brothers get too timid, you know about.
Their voices. There's nothing more precious to appearance than the first list words of their little ones. Oh, how they delight to hear those little words when they first try to express themselves. Just so that Blessed One, he delights to hear your voice.
He loves to have your presence too. Let me see thy face.
Well, yes, we couldn't stay at home, you know, maybe read good books. People have radios and listen to sermons, and some say they can get more staying at home than they could going for meeting. Can the Lord see your face when you're away from the privileged center where he says there am I in the midst of them?
There's something lovely in the in the third Psalm.
Return to it for justice a moment, the third song in the third verse, that thou, Lord, art a shield for me, my glory, and the lifter up of my head. I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and He heard me out of His holy hills. He lost. I laid me down and slept all week, for the Lord sustained me.
Where is the close of the day? Maybe it's been a very stormy day.
A lot of problems have arisen, many trials have confronted us.
But here we find the psalmist closing the day by crying to the Lord.
And having this assurance that he heard me.
From his holy hill, so that he lays him down.
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Quiet rest and sleep.
Then you read in the fifth verse, My voice shall thou hear in the morning, Oh Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up. There is the morning prayer. So we get the evening prayer, and we get the morning prayer too. And then if you look at the 55th Psalm in the 17th verse.
Evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud, and he shall hear my voice. So there's three times a day. Daniel carried that out.
Practice which ended and his being cast into the den of lions, as you know. But he had the scripture and he had the scripture when he prayed towards Jerusalem. Because Solomon had said that whenever they prayed with that city and where that temple was built before them, that God would hear them. And he did hear and he did come in and delivering grace.
To his people.
All, beloved, we can't pray too much or too often. Our lives should be in lives that are characterized by being in the presence of God.
Do you turn all your troubles over to him ere you close your eyes and sleep your eyes in the morning, and look up and direct your thoughts on that one who loves you, who is concerned about you?
Well, now to go back to our subject again.
Our love to Christ.
As the fruit of his love to us.
And I wanted to make it clear first how we can get to know that love. If there's anyone unsaved, if he comes as a poor lost Sinner, you will find the love that saves and the love that forgives and the love that brings him into the place of a child.
With all the blessing that God has in store for his own.
And then after having come into his presence and having known him as a Savior, then we have His preserving, keeping grace. If you turn to the 14th of John or the 13th chapter.
And read the last part of the first verse. Well, maybe we'd better read the whole verse 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 fall, having loved his own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.
What does that end here? I believe that FOB is that it's through every difficulty and trial and danger and problem in this life. He's going to love us.
All that journey through until the journey is over. He loves them on to the end. His love never ceases beloved, and that's why in this 13th of John that he washed the disciples feet so that as he tells Peter, if I worse, they don't. Thou hast no part with me. The Lord not only wants to have us as his children.
In his family, but he wants to have us enjoying his love and going on in communion with himself and that's why he poured the water into the basin and you'll notice it tells us in this chapter that he began to voice the disciples feet doesn't see ever cease to wash their feet, nor has he ceased to wash your feet and mine beloved, and the only reason that any of us are here.
Over the word of God and enjoying Christian fellowship.
Is because many, many times in our lives the Lord has washed our feet.
And he uses the water of the word, and then he uses the towel so that he can make us comfortable to sit in his presence.
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With that which had broken, communion fully judged and removed.
Well then I had a special area before me.
What it is that enables poor things like you and me to respond in love to the One who has done so much for us?
We all have the desire in our hearts.
To how to manifest more love towards the One who has in such grace saved us at such a cost. But how can there be really more love in our hearts for Him?
It isn't putting ourselves back on the law and saying Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. Immediately you put yourself under law. Then we find the old nature active and rebelling and refusing.
To act upon the the desires of the new nature.
My beloved is when we get occupied with His love for us.
Then when we get our hearts warmed and filled and overflowing with that love, as the apostle says, to know the love of Christ, which passes all understanding, there's a very man that we were saying was the great persecutor of the church.
And yet the one he met on the road to the Masters was the one who had sold one.
His forearm, that he says, the love of Christ, which passes all understanding all, we can't measure it. Indeed, He goes to heights and depths and lengths and breadths, but there's no limit to it. It's just as vast. It's just as immense as the very space or as eternity itself, for its eternal in its in its origin and its eternal.
Its purpose. But the lover there is this that you and I can delight in.
And that is that we're the objects of that eternal love of Christ. I was thinking in this connection.
Of Dear Peter.
Of a child of God who got out of communion, and it was through self-confidence that he got out of communion. And it's always the same, beloved. When we trust in ourselves, we're sure to go astray.
But when we judge ourselves, humble ourselves, then repentance and restoration takes place.
Well, you remember how Peter went to sleep in the garden, and how the Lord had to awaken Peter, but when he awoke he went right out full of himself in his own importance to draw the sword, and the Lord was submitting to the sword.
But when he got into the palace of the high priest, his courage failed him completely.
For our beloved, if we are depending on ourselves, remember this. Your courage will fail you too. The Lord only preserves those that are independence upon Himself.
And then Peter denies the Lord three times, and the last time it tells us with woes and cursing.
That man who had followed Jesus for 3 1/2 years now cursing and swearing there that he didn't know Christ.
What was it that broke him down? Just one look.
The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Oh, what a look that must have been.
The tenderest look of affection, wounded because of his failure, and yet, as it were, expressing to his heart, Peter, I love you still.
You know that separated Peter from that ungodly company that murdered Christ. He went out and he never went back. He was separated from them, but he wasn't fully restored in his soul until after the Lord rose again from the dead.
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You know he ran through the sepulchre with hell with John. John outran him. I think a bad conscience made his feet lag. He went back, even John through their own home.
And then Jesus had a private interview with Peter all alone.
It's not necessary for us to know all the ways of the Lord with his children.
Hand His grace to them. But when it came to the recovery, the restoration of Peter as a servant of Christ, that was another matter. And before he could be fully restored to go on in the apostleship and service that was given him, the Lord restores him in the presence of his brethren.
And it's very beautiful in the 21St chapter of John.
15th Verse So when they had died, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He said unto him, Ye Lord, thou N that I love thee. He said unto him, Feed my lambs. You know, Peter boasted then, that he loved the Lord more than all the other disciples.
So the Lord just asks him the question.
You love me more than all these. Well, we see how completely Peter is broken down, for he will not boast now, at him the least, and he gives an answer that shows how true and how real and how deep the work was in his soul.
And the third time he comes out with this statement, he says, Lord, thou knowest all things.
Thou knowest that I love thee. That is as much as to say, Lord, if there's any love in my heart towards you at all, it's only you that can see it. That shows how deep their conviction, their repentance was. That he wouldn't clean them anyway. That he loved the Lord, that he was the only one.
That was able to see it, but yet he knew.
The Lord did see that hath abolen, in spite of his sad sin and failure, that it was love there for his blessed Person. So what I wanted to especially call attention to here.
As the wealth of the Lord says to Peter about feeding his lambs, and feeding and shepherding his sheep. And is this he said unto him, Simon, son of Jonas?
Loveth thou me now the love of the.
Secret of All service is love for Christ.
Now, of course, God does yours.
Natural qualities.
And we know that he used the fact that.
Saul of Tarsus was brought up at the feet of demolition, and had a perfect understanding of all the Old Testament. God made use of that in his time. But without love for Christ, all his advantages, all his knowledge, would never have made him a useful man in the vineyard of Christ. And so as Peter the word is.
Simon, son of Jonas, lovers thou me and he says you feed my lambs. Well, the Lord has lambs as well as sheep. And remember that beloved Saints. And I think there is something instructive here. He doesn't say feed my lambs and and sheep. He makes a different distinction that they are those that are young that need special care.
They need the simplicity of instruction.
And so three times, just as Peter had denied the Lord three times.
He fully confesses him, and then the Lord informs him that the very.
Her failure that had that had led to his fall later on. He was going to let another guardian. He was going to fully submit to the hand of God and was going to honor his blessed Lord and going to a cross and dying for him.
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So, as we think, beloved of any service.
No matter how small it is, whether it's your young sisters.
To get a few children around to on Lord's Day and have a little Sunday school.
Well, whatever work it is.
It's what is going to make that work, A blessing.
It is love for Christ.
Now this theme follows all through the Word. And if we were to turn to the fifth chapter of Second Corinthians in the 14th verse, For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all. That they which lived should not henceforth live unto themselves.
But unto him which died for them, and rose again. Therefore henceforth knowing no man after the flesh, Yeah, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth knowing Him no more.
And then he says.
That.
For the love of Christ constraineth us, that is, the apostle in his laborers in the gospel.
What gave power to his message and reached souls with a word was the love of Christ constraining Him.
Whereas he says if one died for all, then we're all dead.
You see, he had been bringing before the Corinthians the Psalm thought of the judgment seat of Christ, where everything would be manifested in the searching light of God's glory.
All when he fought a poor sinners without any refuge outside of Christ have to face the Judge.
With nothing but the lake of fire as their destiny, it filled his heart with love for those poor lost souls, the love of Christ.
And strangers, and so in connection with his work among the people of God was.
It was his love for Christ that gave such power and such.
A testimony in connection with his.
Instructions.
To the dear Saints of God.
Now we have a very strong example of the absence of what we're talking about, the love of Christ.
As the power and the way that God will use any of his servants.
And blessing in this world, whether it will be in the gospel or whether it will be in.
Helping and encouraging and strengthening the people of God. Now in the second chapter of Revelation, and the second verse says, I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil, and has tried them, which say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars.
And is born and has patients.
And for my name's sake has labored and has not fainted. You think that an assembly that could be addressed in the way the Apostle addresses the assembly at Ephesus? Their state must have been almost perfect.
He speaks of their labor, their patience, and they were not allowing evil in their midst.
And there are those that were not apostles. They were false.
Teachers, they were trying to get the year of the Saints. They tried and found them liars. And as borne and have patience and for my name's sake has labor. There's lots of Labor.
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Listen.
Nevertheless I have against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
No amount of energy put into service is going to satisfy the heart of Christ.
Oh yes, we can get out on the street and give away lots of tracks, but if it isn't that, our hearts are warm by the love of Christ.
It will not keep us from being ensnared by the attacks of the enemy. I'm not in any way criticizing track distribution would develop. There was more of that, and with the God, there was more of an effort to gather in the children.
For the time is short, and the judgment of God is coming down on this world. Thank God for those who go to foreign fields and seek to.
Win souls for the Savior before the awful night of eternal doom settles on this guilty world. May God encourage and strengthen. Stir up your heart, dear young people, for you know some of these older ones are not going to be able to continue many years more, and if the work is to go on, it will be carried on by.
Younger men.
And Sunday school work, younger sisters, all that will be encouraged to carry on the work of the Lord.
But I say it for myself, the beloved, as much As for anyone here.
The importance of all being the result of that love in the heart for our blessed Lord.
Are those at Ephesus once so intelligent in the divine things that Paul had written in Ephesians as to their sitting together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, showing how soon and how quickly the cleansing who may come into your midst?
And what is it thou hast left thy first love, that love that the apostle Paul saw when he first went to Ephesus and that John had experienced in his ministry. That was that was gone. Plenty of activity. Oh yes, you can go to a large the morning meeting never missed.
A remembrance of the Lord.
What about your state of soul?
Is Christ increasingly precious to your heart? Beloved trends as the time draws near and the Lords coming is at hand. All those are the things that need to pass these hearts of ours. And you notice here that there was only one remedy for them. And what was that?
The fifth verse Remember, therefore, from whence our fallen and repent.
And do the 1St works, or else I will come unto the leaf quickly, and will remove thy Candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
Has self judgment.
As a way to be brought back into the freshness of that love.
And we see ourselves slipping when we see the world getting into our hearts, when we find present things that are more important than eternal things than he does. Repentance to get down before the Lord and judge the whole her departure that has brought such carelessness and such coldness into our souls.
So again, beloved, the scene that I've had before us.
As love for Christ as the fruit of his love for us.
And leave this little message we have had here this afternoon.
Awakened in your heart, and my heart perhaps more than any other.
And more occupation where the love of that blessed One.
Think of what He means to you and the thing why He has done for us. Think of Him there and the glory on high, waiting for that supreme moment when He's going to descend with a shout and call us into His glorious presence to be forever.
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Forever in his company.
Where we sing hymn #2 in the appendix. O Lord, Thy loves unbounded, so sweet, so full, so free. My soul is all transported when there I think on the Yet Lord, alas, what weakness within myself I find no infants changing. Pleasure is like my wandering mind. I'm so glad that a man like Brother Darby wrote.
Well, I'm sure we've all had the same experience.
Of our poor changing minds and how that will go on. At least I do for hours. Never even think of the Lord, be so engaged with other things. The Lord is completely out of my thoughts and my desires. Maybe I'll make plans and so on and never get into the Lord's presence at all.
But how sweet the next word is, and yet thy loves.
Unchanging, and thus recall my heart, the joy in all its brightness, the peace its beings in part.