SUCH was a famous saying of a devoted and highly gifted servant of Christ, long since passed away; but, though he be gone, the saying is well worth repetition, “Loving-kindness” a word that is used about thirty times in the Old Testament, and connected on each occasion with God―is a truth that may well command attention and reach the heart.
The word “love” is winsome, and the word “kindness” is full of tenderness; but here we have the two combined, as though neither could express sufficiently the feeling of the heart―God’s heart!
A kindness that is loving! Ah! reader, that is something to be valued in such a world as this. There is an omnipotence, too, about such a kindness.
Did you ever hear the following couplet? ―
“Love and terror only harden
All the while they are alone,
But the sense of blood-bought pardon
Soon dissolves the heart of stone.”
That, if true, proves its omnipotence. What I mean is, that “loving-kindness” has embodied itself, and, by the most wonderful self-sacrifice that could be made, has sought to win over enemies to friends, sinners to saints. Hence we read, “Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2:14). This refers, of course, to our blessed Lord, who, as the embodiment of, that “loving-kindness,” sacrificed Himself for our redemption. Thus it is a pardon bought by blood― bought at the infinite but necessary cost of all that He was. Now, that is love! It is the love of God!
Oh, think of it, friend! Place yourself by the cross of Jesus, and view Him there under the agony of divine judgment against our sin, ―there necessarily, for “without shedding of blood there is no remission” ―there willingly, for He said, “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God;” and, again, “I lay it down (His life) of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again” (John 10:18); but there, in deepest and most wondrous love, in order that the poor sinner, whose sins demand eternal death, might through faith in Him inherit everlasting glory. Thus it was with one who was actually beside Him during that awful hour. He, a thief, and a sinner, like all others, had the vision which I suggest to you, dear friends, with the glorious result that, overpowered by its mighty spell―convicted, converted, and confiding―he passed that day to be with the Lord in paradise. What a result for him! But
“There may you, though vile as he,
Wash all your sins away.”
If the omnipotence of the cross was proved to the dying thief, why not to you? Your heart may have resisted the terrors of law and threats of coming judgment; you may hitherto have refused submission to authority, ―but here is a love that seeks to woo and win, to draw and bless, to redeem and save you! Can you still hold out?
But the other day I heard of one, thus overpowered, who fell on her knees and said, “Lord Jesus, I thank Thee ten thousand times for dying for me.” Her gratitude was beyond the power of language. Words could not communicate the fullness of her heart. She had through grace the sense of a blood-bought pardon!
And I may safely say, that if a sight of Calvary fail to melt your hard and stony heart, and break it into a thousand pieces, nothing else can. The cross is God’s great center of attraction. He makes everything of that as the ground of blessing and the way of salvation. It is, moreover, the full expression of love and the channel of boundless grace. Oh, how it suits the sinner too! No, nothing else can win, or bless, or save. The dread judgment-seat may terrify; the awful sentence may appall; and then departure into everlasting fire may wither up every hope, and lay the lost foul in the agonies of hopeless despair―all fearfully true―but not one, or all together, can win the heart, or reach the affections, or kindle a spark of love.
That was the work of the cross. The tender bosom that accepted the stroke of infinite justice, offered at the same time a sweet and perfect shelter to the offender. That proffered shelter being spurned and rejected, then there remains an only but an awful alternative. It must either be infinite judgment on the sinner’s substitute, or else eternal judgment on the sinner himself―one or other! May your heart, dear reader, be won by the love of Christ. May the prayer of David, in Psalm 51, be your prayer today, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy LOVING-KINDNESS; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.”
That sinful monarch had no plea but God’s loving-kindness and tender mercy, and alongside these he laid his own transgressions. Let David’s plea be yours. It is all availing.
“I ask no other argument,
I want no other plea;
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.”
J. W. S.