10.04 Knowing the Real Jesus
10 - God is Love; Section 4 KNOWING THE REAL JESUS A dear brother in Christ has penned these valuable words of admonition: "The opinions we form by hearing about people are usually found to be wrong after we have come to know them personally. This is also true concerning God. When you come to know Him, you will find Him very unlike the description given by theologians. You will come to know that much that they teach is only rubbish because it is contrary to the nature of God. It certainly was so with the Jewish theologians and doctors of the law. When Jesus came He smashed their theories to bits and tore the robes of their ecclesiasticism to ribbons. He ate with sinners, cast the devil out of the Syrophoenician, let a sinful woman of the street wash His feet, forgave a thief, healed on the Sabbath, ate with unwashed hands, called the best religionists of His day liars, hypocrites, serpents, children of the devil, whited sepulchres, and a generation of snakes. They thought that they knew God, but they didn’t. He was more pleased with the sincerity of sinners than with the ritualism of scribes and Pharisees. When you come to know Him, you will find that it is the same now as it was then.
"Furthermore, to know Him who is truth empowers one to immediately recognize all that is error. The more you come to know Christ, the more you come to recognize the flagrant error of so much that is taught in the name of truth. If the doctrines that men try so hard to prove run contrary to the very nature of Christ, then know that all that is contrary to His gracious Spirit is error. For years without number the evangelicals in their missionary fervor have taught that all heathen men will be condemned forever to groan in eternal flames in unremitting torment because they did not accept Christ, their ignorance of His existence being no excuse whatever. I have no hesitation whatsoever in calling this a lie, because everything about it is contrary to the very nature of the blessed Christ I know. It is contrary to His love, contrary to His kindness and mercy, contrary to His foreknowledge, contrary to His immutable wisdom, and contrary to His great and all-inclusive redemption, of which it is stated that as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
"I care not how many wonderful acts of God you see or bear witness to, you will always remain a spiritual baby, living for and lusting after outward things, until your spirit is awakened to grasp the eternal, immutable purposes of God. Sadly we confess that the Church system is filled today, as in the centuries past, with those shallow souls who praise the excitement, the revival meetings, physical healings, baptisms, seminars, building programs and acts without number, but who know not God’s ways. Tell such super-spirituals that God had a purpose in the fall of mankind and they will brand you as a fanatic or a false prophet from the pit. Tell them that it is God’s purpose to reconcile ALL THINGS unto Himself and they will begin their name calling and put the worst possible interpretation upon all you say. If you preach that ninety-and-nine out of every hundred of God’s creation will burn in torment eternally, they will admire you as a man of truth and understanding, but if you say that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, they will gaze upon your ignorance with the sympathetic understanding generally reserved for lunatics. Like Israel of old, they have seen God’s acts, but have known none of His ways. Ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth; they pride themselves in being hell-fire preachers and love to try to dangle people over the flame, hoping to scare them into becoming believers. Well did the Lord say, ’I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied’ (Jeremiah 23:21)" - The Page. A man who knows God can answer questions about God because he KNOWS God. I know my wife. We have lived together, sacrificed together, suffered together, laughed together, loved together, prayed together, and triumphed together for some twenty-eight years. I believe I know her fairly well. There are some things that if I were told that she did them, I would not believe it for one moment, though there be all manner of circumstantial evidence to support the claims. I would not believe it BECAUSE I KNOW HER. I know how she thinks, how she is; her nature, her character, her ways.
I have served God all my life. I did not throw away my youth on filthy, disgusting and shameful practices. I have been preaching the Gospel of Christ practically full-time since I was fourteen years old. God kept me. He filled me with an intense hatred of evil, and an intense love for God. I love Him and have always wanted to walk with Him. I have been sitting at His feet for 45 years. To me the Christ has filled my life, and for me there is no life, no love, no power apart from Him. He has been to me, All. He is more to me now than ever, and I know Him. I know something of the power of His resurrection and I know something of the fellowship of His sufferings, and I have trod somewhat in His footsteps, and I love to speak His Name. Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! The Name that charms our fears, that bids our sorrows cease; ’Tis music in the sinner’s ears, ’tis life, ’tis health, ’tis peace! Bless His name!
I would never preach anything I cannot find plainly indicated in the Holy Scriptures. However, if there was not even one small passage in all the Word of God that clearly states that God will have all men to be saved, that He will reconcile all unto Himself, I would still, in my deepest heart, believe it to be the truth because I KNOW GOD. I know something of His ways. I know something of His nature. I know something of His character. I know something of His power. I know something of His purpose. "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you" (1 John 1:3). "That I may know Him!" cried Paul in the longing of his soul. "That I may know Him!" patriarchs and seers of all ages have prayed. "That I may know Him!" is the echo of my own longing heart. Yet I DO KNOW HIM in a measure. And I know that in all of His ways, in all of His intents, and in all of His doings GOD IS LOVE.
Why did God make the universe, the earth and sky above?
Scripture gives the answer when it says that "God is love."
Before God made the universe He worked a master plan, He knew how everything would end before it all began.
He made mankind so He could have an object of His love, But man was blind and did not see - it came from above. So God created evil as He had created night, So man could see the good in Him - in darkness we see light.
He made the "blackboard" very black, with evil, sin, and woe.
He made an adversary to be His cunning foe.
He made the earth to be a "stage" to show the hosts above, By all of our experiences, His wisdom and His love.
He locks up all in stubbornness to make His mercy clear;
Lets Satan lure all men away, so He can draw all near.
He gives His only firstborn Son to die and save us all;
Yet each in his own class we read; we’re blind until our call.
You ask me why God made the earth, the glittering stars above? The Scriptures give the answer when they say that
GOD IS LOVE!
Anyone who dares to proclaim the beautiful truth of the restoration of all men to God and pins people right down to the Word of God is immediately accused by the unthinking masses of teaching heresy, and is accused of teaching doctrines which give the sinner nothing to flee from, no reason for accepting salvation. Such thoughtlessness! These poor simple folks are merely admitting in this that they themselves have never yet had a revelation of the abounding love of God. They are but admitting their shame in upholding a false gospel which would attempt to scare men into God’s Kingdom. It never has worked. It never will. Christ leads and draws through love. Sometimes love disciplines and breaks, but it does not play games by "scaring" people into God! Fear is not the instrument of God to bring men unto Himself.
If fear of hell were a legitimate tool in turning men to God, we should expect to find that the community where the flames of hell were the stock argument of the preachers to woo men from sin would be noted for its spirituality and holiness of life. As one has written, "Witness, then, the Roman Catholic Church in its most prosperous times in the Dark Ages holding over its adherents a ceaseless threat of purgatory and hell, and fattening on the proceeds from the pockets of her poor hunted sheep. Was there such a striking scene of righteousness then, that a Luther should not be needed? Fear is the weapon of man and of law. Love is the all-conquering sceptre of God. ’God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of love and of power and of a sound mind.’
"It is love, not fear, that has bound those of us who love the Lord as willing captives to His chariot wheels. Love that does not spoil but lures and conquers: love that, while it loves the sinner, hates his sin: love that disciplines with unstinting hand, that the chastened may, at last, be a partaker of His holiness. This love is the power that has overcome men so far, and that is destined to do its perfect work till God is all in all"
-A. E. Saxby. And instead of preaching a false gospel to sinners, instead of holding up before them fancied horrors which they may escape, the true Gospel tells them of the unsearchable riches of Christ, of the glory of the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. The sinner misses nothing by accepting Christ, nothing but the horrible fruit of unrighteousness, the terrible wages of sin. He does cease to be a degraded mortal under the curse of sin and death and becomes a child of God. Who wants to remain a faltering mortal when one can be translated into the highest realm of all infinity, when one may become the very same manner of being as the One who created the worlds?
How men struggle and strive and suffer here to obtain ownership of a mere particle of this little speck of dust known as our sin-cursed earth! How they sacrifice for a mere shelter for these sin-sick bodies, which must soon be left behind! Friends, I own a world, maybe a whole galaxy of worlds! For my Lord and Saviour owns the universe. He is "heir of ALL THINGS" (Hebrews 1:2). And we are "joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him" (Romans 8:17). Who wants to fritter away time and energy on this passing shadow which is earth, when such eternal and fadeless wealth and position and glory and power may be gained by merely coming into an experiential knowledge of THE ABOUNDING LOVE OF GOD?
Oh, that all men might learn God’s one and only everlasting Gospel, the Gospel of love - and then preach it! and BE IT! Love alone can draw A-L-L MEN to Calvary’s crimson fountain. Only a Calvary love can transform a world gone mad, and revive a sleeping Church obsessed with her deliriums into a thing of beauty and praise and usefulness. And anyone who is lifting up to a lost and dying world anything or anyone other than Jesus and His wonderful love is simply living a wasted life. The Love of God must be lifted up IN US. The Sons of God are the Sons of Love, for GOD IS LOVE! The love of God is greater far Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star, And reaches to the lowest hell. The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win; His erring child He reconciled, And pardoned from his sin. When hoary time shall pass away, And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall; When men who here refuse to pray, On rocks and hills and mountains call;
God’s love so sure, shall still endure, All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race - The saint’s and angel’s song!