Love God with All Your Heart

Loving God With All Your Heart

Yeah, I am if we could open up our Bibles though and Appreciate all your faces. I didn't know most of you to less and greater degree, but if we're gonna open up our Bibles to a very wonderful verse and We're gonna look at this tonight and this verse is Excuse me let's read it together and then we're gonna pray before we have some thoughts and And thou this is Deuteronomy 6 verse 5 shalt love the Lord thy God With all thine heart with all thy soul and with all thy might.

Prayer for the Holy Spirit and Repentance

Now the difference between that verse in the Old Testament and the New Testament is the New Testament says with all your heart and soul and mind not might As it's translated in the New Testament, but with that let's go over to pray.

Dear Father, I thank you for first of all, I'd like to thank you for Jesus. And I thank you for the Holy Spirit that he sent another comforter. And I agree entirely with what I said this morning. There's nothing that will mean anything in the light of eternity in anybody's life except you come down and You work and I I think of the Old Testament where it says, oh the thou wouldest rend the heavens it would come down.

The mountains might melt at thy presence. The father Jesus Christ said believe in me and out of your belly will flow rivers of living waters. And Jesus Christ said I am come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly.

And you said what man among you? If you son asked bread will give him a stone. If he asked fish will give him. Depending on the passage a serpent or a scorpion. How much more shall your father in heaven not give the Holy Spirit to them that ask?

Father we long for thee we ask for thee and like Moses. I do not want an angel to go before me. I want God to go before me. And I was that you would shine upon it me and every single person sitting here shine upon those who are not saved and show them they're not saved and Work repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ shine upon Christians and so every lie of Satan that might be in their life or experience or rule or Or doctrine that is not of thee.

And father I ask you that you would show us our need and be the answer to that need through Jesus Christ. And I pray this in Jesus name Amen, you know before I was preaching this weekend all those last few days from Sunday to Tuesday evening at a little town about seven hours or six hours away and I'd come 17 hours driving a car up to Missouri and I was arrived at about 2 o 'clock in the morning.

I remember I got to bed about 2 o 'clock in the morning and the next day I left by bus and I enjoyed that bus that bus was so nice. American buses are classy and I even had the bus to myself at one stage where there was nobody else in the bus for about half an hour and On another stage on the way back.

I remember this B was going around. You want to see the Americans get excited about something? Let there be a B going around they were yelling and shouting and warning each other and falling over literally and I was like I walked up to this B and I caught it and They thought I was a hero and so I decided I'll get something out of this.

So I put my hands out and walked down the bus asking for money. In a recompense for my great Eurism and after all that shouting none of them gave me anything, but they did laugh. I also got myself a Jehovah's Witness to speak to which was quite fun.

The Command to Love God Fully

But when I got to that little town, you cannot believe how many people that was. How did you get here? And they asked. I said in the bus that they literally almost fainted it's as if they'd never seen a bus before and I'm not joking one of the persons literally sat down for three minutes almost just looked at me.

He said you came on a bus you came on a bus. Now you can explain to me one day what Americans are thinking when they repeat things over and over but I don't know. The Bible though says in Deuteronomy 6 verse 5 these words.

And I shall love the Lord thy God with all the heart and all thy soul. And all thy mind. And I remember when I was in India once up in the foothills of the Himalayas and I came to this little town and This town Like many places in that is very primitive.

They didn't have much education. You can understand in the big cities though that they were not very clean in the poor areas because Literally their streets would be filled with with rubbish and the air will be filled with pollution.

But up there in the mountain with the beautiful clear river and the lovely plenty of space for people to build their houses plenty of trees plenty of lands to farm you'd expect that some of them would be clean and Yet they had from generation to generation this little village not taught their children how to brush their teeth how to clean their ears how to do anything literally and so.

What happened is? We came there and they had every single child literally had growing out of the ears. Some kind of a plant almost that was black and ugly and there's one child on his head and I almost threw up when I looked at this had something as big as this and it was it was like a root that was growing into its head and This was mostly through ignorance and through choices because they weren't in the big city where in the poor areas where there wasn't a means by which to be clean now.

The Consequences of Human Choices

In Australia I read once. A while back I followed it over a few years this one boy. He ate a slug. He was a very strong muscular boy very athletic, and he played rugby which is the alternative to American football I think and and he was this strong-looking lovely boy and he was with his friends one day at about 20 years old and.

And he saw this little slug, and they all said why don't you eat that and he took a dare. And so by his choice he picked up that slug he put in his mouth, and he swallowed it. It was his birthday. Within a few minutes he was writhing on the floor.

He went off his head. He got a disease from that slug. Which many people recover from although they don't normally get it from eating slugs. But in his case He went into a coma so long that it destroyed his mind and a few years later in a wheelchair as a pathetic little loose weak white body he died and I remember the day he died as I followed this little story.

There's so many people out there through their choices I don't even know the choices that they're making but they really end up in the sinful world and a lot of trouble and. And in a lot of hardship. I was sitting down with a friend of mine a friend of my wife too since she was a little boy and It's an all too familiar story.

There's someone that as a child you played with you made tree houses with. You went hunting with you went fishing with and they were strong and they were good-looking and that a future and that a talent and then they made choices in life and Through those choices and of course if you want to go down the road of choices proverbs is a great book to study which we're Not going to look at tonight, but through these choices things would happen and eventually I every time I see the picture of his brother now.

He looks like an old man in his 90s as an alcoholic and I think of that sometimes when I cries I think of the boys who were with me at public school. We had over a thousand boys at school. Remember that the the potential of some of them worse than that those the people who went to church who went to conservative camps who went to Christian churches that were conservative and seeing what happened to them.

I'm not a crybaby I hope but I'll tell you I've worked over many people in life as I see them on Facebook and see where they've gone and what they could have been. Some people who even tried to follow Jesus Christ in some way shape form or size but now they propagate evil and Their lives are destroyed.

Suffering, Famine, and a Broken World

The world is a terrifying place. It wasn't always that way. We know that God made the world good. Not entity make it good. But it was supposed to be intended to be filled with godly people who would not stab each other in the back who would not kill.

Each other would not rape who would not steal. Who would not commit adultery. There was not supposed to be sicknesses there was not supposed to be famine in America. There have been little famines in your history a few hundred thousand people affected in the very worst that you ever had but in the world if you look even in the last hundred years and Of course if it's far away, then it doesn't seem as emotional to a person who's in it.

But in China, for instance, most of the world's top famines by the way have happened in countries like India, China, Persia Iran and nowadays Russia and even Japan where millions of people would die in a famine within three years.

They say up to 40 people died 1959 to 1961 in the Great China famine. In fact, there were a few Great China famines. That was the worst. They don't know but it was 15 million if it was 40 million. 35 to 60 of Europe in the 1300s died over 75 million people potentially of the plague and If Nearer to home if we look at the Irish famine and 1840 40-somethings.

For a few years there when the potatoes had a sickness that was a stable diet of one-third of Ireland over 1 .6 million people emigrated to countries like America and over 1 .5 million. They don't know if it's 1 .1 million or 1 .5 million.

They can't really tell how many bodies were lying on the ground that were dead. And That's Europe. They didn't have food stamps in those days. You know that stuff that the lazy people take it was very real to them.

What we look at today as a political statement in those days was life and death. Now, I don't know how many of you know of the year of no summer in 1815 it wasn't that there were there was probably several hundred thousand people who died if you look at Asia and Europe.

But in the year of no summer, how many of you know of the of Krakatoa? Okay, so Krakatoa is what they I don't know if they teach you in America how many volcanoes that teach you. That's quite a famous one.

They and at least in the Western world. They teach you about Krakatoa just big. It affected the whole world it caused Tsunamis that went over the neighboring islands even smaller. Eruptions of the same Krakatoa Island within the last year have caused many tsunamis to affect a lot of people.

But there was a greater in the 1800s and 1815 in the same chain of volcanoes. There was a volcano called Tambora and this volcano a massive mountain thousands of feet in the air almost a third of it blew up and.

They didn't have so much telephones in those days and the satellite images and and Weather forecasts the knowledge of which hurricane is going to hit you and so in Europe. They did not know that this volcano had erupted and they had no idea that the next year there would be no summer.

And so for them they didn't know that they had to keep more food aside they didn't know that they weren't going to be able to plant their crops because the whole year would be snow and cold and so hundreds of thousands died.

Christian Faith Amid Sickness and Depression

That's widespread hurt. You know, I've cried this year just looking at a few people and what they go through. And I think to myself. Thank you. God that my children are healthy at this stage and I've seen in the slums in South Africa and in different countries how terrifying diseases can be ravaging little children.

That their bodies are eaten apart by whatever got hold of them. But I'd like you to imagine for a moment people don't like to talk generally when you talk about the Revivalist and you talk about the victories the fact that they had times where there was revival.

They prayed for so long and then a thousand people got saved. They often went through terrifying struggles the revivalist and you generally won't find it in the small books about them. Emotional struggles physical struggles mental struggles.

Charles Spurgeon even had entire sermons. Charles Spurgeon on depression. And he said this is something that I myself have struggled with very much in his sermon. We live in a world. That's Not so nice when it hits you.

There's little babies that are born and I know you know about conjoined co-joined twins. I mean all of you know about famous co-joined twins Asian ones and American ones and You wonder how they're gonna marry if they're gonna marry and things like that and people follow them and they have millions of followers nowadays now that we've got the internet and.

But something else can happen in the womb. That is similar to co-joined twins. And there are people out there that live with this literally you can have two little. Two little babies and the one baby at a very early stage can die, but its body can get absorbed into the other body.

And So what happens is you'll be born and your twin at your part of your body was made from your twin. And sometimes it's only your kidneys. Sometimes it's your liver. Sometimes it's your leg. There are people though that entire half of their body was made from their twin and What happens is the same thing that happens when your heart gets transplanted if you're if you're if you get the wrong heart your body Starts to reject that heart and it's going to literally treat it with antibodies.

It's going to kill it and so these little people these little babies are Born with half a body that's been rejected and The only way and reason that some people don't cry about that is because it's not their children.

But this is the world that we live in. I don't even know but there's three major diseases That causes you to not feel anything. The one would be leprosy, Hansen's disease. There's Leprosoriums in America with lovely golf courses and of course no one can play golf at a certain stage in leprosy.

But they have amazing facilities in India. You have leprosariums across the world where Nelson Mandela was in South Africa. He was on the island that had a leprosarium. People with leprosy will. Sometimes when you cannot open an old rusty door in India.

They'll come there and they'll rip the door open and you'll wonder how did they have that strength? They thin and then you'll see the blood dripping on the ground because they didn't know that they ripped their hand off literally.

Not only that but if you got sugar diabetes, it can lead to the same effect in parts of your body where you do not feel pain and and there's a Something very sad. It's called congenital congenital indifference.

And your baby, your little child, and I've got four children, your little child can be born with congenital indifference. It's the same as leprosy. Your child will not know That it's feeling pain. It can put its hand on a stove for minutes and minutes and minutes and it will not feel anything as it burns its fingers off.

Little children, little one-year-old babies two-year-old babies. Rip their fingers off. Bite their fingers off, blood pours, they use it, enjoying it, to draw a picture. This is the reality of the world that we are in and it's not like God wanted it little children.

Rats can eat their fingers and they'll only know the next morning. I don't know if you've ever heard of suicide disease. They say it's probably the most painful disease on earth, or there might be something out there.

We don't know about. I think the technical name is trigeminal neuralgia. I know people who have this disease. And I'm sure some of you, maybe there's someone here who does too. I was recently actually in Pennsylvania at a prayer meeting at a church where I spoke and There was a man there that had this disease.

It takes up a part of your face. It's so painful that they call it the suicide disease. It's worse than giving childbirth. It's extremely painful. It's unbearable. You cannot live with yourself, literally.

You know what was so precious to me when I sat there? First of all, I did not know that this man had that disease. He's an old man. He came there with a wrinkled face. He huddled in, he was smiling through the pain.

Worse than childbirth. Sat down over there and I'll tell you what he talked about. He talked about Jesus. The one he loved. He not only talked about Jesus, the one he loved, but he talked about the souls that he was inviting to church.

That he was excited to invite to church. Excited, sorry. And he talked about the souls that he talked to about Jesus. The one he loved. As a boy, I went into a hospital once and I Remember coming in there and there was this.

He was 23 years old running about and his whole body was thin. And he was white. His face was shriveled up. And I asked him what's wrong with you? He said He said I got a little virus that you get quite a few times in your life.

He said but it went to the wrong part of my body. And when normally it just clears up after a few weeks and most people's lives it went down to my kidneys. And shriveled up a whole lot of my organs and I'm dying.

Do you know what I loved about that person? And I could tell you have many more. He didn't blame God. He loved Jesus. And he said I don't want. I wouldn't want anybody to go through this. But I'm glad God put me through it because I've never been so close to God as I've been through this sickness.

Loving God Through Hardship

Now I'd like to ask you a question. Deuteronomy 6 verse 5 says his words. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy sign. Sorry, Oh Heart and all thy soul and with all thy might.

Do you love? My Jesus not only when he's Done the spiritual equivalent of winning the lotto or everything's going right in business. When things go wrong. There's two great commandments the Bible says in Matthew 22 we have Jesus Christ and there's a lawyer and this lawyer comes to Jesus and this lawyer asks a Question.

Tempting him. It's not a nice lawyer. This lawyer wants to get at Jesus. I'm gonna catch Jesus and he says master. Which is the great commandment in the law? You know what? I love about Jesus Christ. He's not taken back by any question that's ever asked of him.

In fact when this try I try to get him with a question that perhaps he wanted to give him the wrong. Wanted Jesus to give the wrong answer or he wanted Jesus to give not have an answer. Jesus had two answers.

To one question Jesus said unto him thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul and all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself on these two commandments.

The Bible says Oh Jesus said all the law and the prophets. I'm not going to go into what some preachers say of the ten commandments or some are towards God and some are towards man. But I'll tell you these are the two most important thing like they used to say in the old sermons you got the cross.

It's it's it's horizontal and it's vertical. Horizontal love towards our fellow vertical love towards God. Do you love God with all your heart and soul and mind? I'd like to elaborate on that a little bit because a lot of people say they do and they don't.

Religious Practice Without Love for God

You see number one you can be religious and this at least I think most of us will understand. You can be religious many people thousands of people religious yet. They do not love God. We find in Luke 11 verse 42 these words but woe unto you Pharisees for you tithe mint and rue all manner and all manner of herbs and Pass over judgment and the love of God.

These ought you to have done not to leave the other undone and this love of God is towards our fellow man and towards God. So you can be very religious and yet not love God and your fellow man. In fact in the Bible one of the proofs of salvation.

Which of course it's great to go to one John. There's about 11 proofs there. We go to Romans. We go to Corinthians. We've got a many different places. But one of the proofs of salvation is 1 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 3 and it says these words, but if any man love God.

The same is known of him not if you're religious, but if you love God. Come back to that John 8 verse 42 we see that this flows over because Jesus is God the proof of salvation that you're a child of God is that you love Jesus.

Jesus said unto them if God were your father then you would love me. So if you are a child of God, you would love Jesus and if you don't love Jesus, you're not a child of God very simply put for I came forth and I Proceeded and came forth from God.

Love Growing Cold and the Loss of First Love

Now we read something in Matthew chapter 24. In Matthew chapter 24 we read as some sad words and I don't always get into the Dispensationism and when this will happen and who is talking about but I can see this around me very much today.

Matthew 24 verse 12 and because iniquity shall abound because people will be going their own way and doing their own thing and it's generally In the church because they say we've got an umbrella called grace over our head.

So we allow to do what we want. But because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold. You know what that means. That means people had love but it ebbed down it became colder that hot love but it became colder.

Because of the influence of society. That's what will happen in the end time. Speaking of a church in Revelation 2 verse 4 we read these words. Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee. Because thou has left Thy first love.

I'd like to talk about me for a moment. Then when I talk about me, I'm not talking about me. Some amazing preacher and talk about me the sinner that needed Jesus. Matthew 10 verse 37 we read a verse. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me and he that loveth son or daughter.

More than me is not worthy of me. Now this is a verse that puzzled me when I was a little child. Now all of you should I hope understand that we are Born sinners. We got that from Adam. We do not love God naturally from our birth.

We cut off from life in God and we are selfish. It's not just a death that there's a body on the ground doing nothing. It's a living death in essence because we have in us sinful nature. And we're going our own way as Isaiah 53 says and doing our own thing.

We don't naturally love God even if we go to church and sit in church and sing and go on mission trips and Hand out tracks. Those things don't change what is in us and I was born a little sinner. I had wonderful parents by the way, my mother was saved when she was six years old and truly saved my dad Was saved when he was about 18 or 19.

I can't remember the exact age. Maybe it was 20. I wasn't there, but I had wonderful parents. My dad used to Discipline me. I don't know if you know what that is anymore. My dad had a hand. No my dad used his hand let me think my mother used a shoe.

My granny used she had a wooden spoon. My grandpa had a weeping willow without leaves and a plastic pipe. My grandpa was a farmer and he said a boy a man does not cry when he gets thank you at any rate.

It did me good. But it didn't save me. And I love my parents. My dad used to sing me to sleep. I love my daddy singing me to sleep. Some people don't have a wonderful daddy. Some people I've met orphans and I've met young little children that's in front of me weeping as they talk about how their parents would beat them almost to death because they Satanists and if they tell anybody about the satanism of their parents, they will almost kill their children.

But I had wonderful parents. I had absolutely loving I thank God for that. But but being born in a bakery does not make you a Bread and being born in a garage does not make you a car and so I had a problem because I would go to church and I would I would pray and I would fast even and I would organize prayer meetings through the night and I would even preach.

And I would hand out tracts and I speak to Muslims about the Lord. But I had a problem because when I came to verses like this in the Bible and I saw that he that loved with father. Or mother more than me is not worthy of me.

I Realized but I can't love God more than I love my mother and father because you see I had a problem. There was a wall between me and God and that wall was my sin. I was born a sinner Dunson compared to Hitler.

I look great compared to God. I was in big trouble and I could on this side of the wall. I could go to church. I could hand out tracts. I could pray. I could I got a mission trips. I can do all these things, but I didn't know God it was out.

I was without God and without hope in this world. And then there came a day. It came a day when that that wall Was washed away through the blood of Jesus Christ and I met with God through Jesus. And in one moment when I met with God through Jesus Christ, that was a new person and No, I was not perfect from that day, but I can tell you one thing.

I suddenly and Gradually started to understand what it meant to love God with all your. To love God more than your father and your mother. I didn't love my mother and father less but for the first time Romans 5 is 5 became true in my life because it says he should have brought the love of God my heart through the Holy Spirit in me a New heart is equal.

28 verse 36 is 36 it says a New heart also will I give you. I'll take out the heart of stone. I'll give you a heart of flesh. No light. I'll write my law upon your heart. God took that Old heart out and he put a new heart in because Jesus was in.

For the first time I loved God more than my father and my mother. Because he died for me and rose again. You know Peter had a boast in the Bible. Peter said in Matthew 26 was 33. He said answers and said unto him though.

All men shall be offended because of thee. I Will never yet will I never be offended? That's quite a statement. Now Jesus Christ answered him and said before the cock crow you would an army rice and. That's exactly what he did.

Jesus Questions Peter's Love

And then he met Peter again. And I'm not going to go into the whole ins and out many of these verses you could have a whole series of sermons just On these a few verses, but I'd like to home in on a few thoughts.

John 21 was 15. He said Jesus said to Simon Peter Simon son of Jonas Love us thou me more than these. That's an amazing question. Remember what Peter said? Peter said if everybody else Forsakes you I'm not gonna forsake you.

What does Jesus say after he fells? Do you love me more than everybody? You said if everybody does you're not gonna. Do you love me more than everybody? He said feed my lambs. Ask them again feed my sheep as the answer and If you love me feed my sheep third time, you know I've found something very sad and in what is called the church today and so many people and you know, what says I Don't care if it's family.

I don't care if it's friends. I don't care if it's you if it's caring for other people or not. I don't know even all the words you can use for it. I don't care. What is important in your life. Nothing is more important than putting what God says is love first because we've got churches out there and There's Christians out there so-called and there's hundreds of thousands of them and They say on the streets in the churches and the conservative churches even.

That God's love is so unconditional that we must not judge at all. If someone is literally committing adultery We must not judge them. Why? Because God unconditionally loves them and they they're going through a hard time.

Let me tell you in the Bible God cares about the hard times you go through. He cares very much about the hard times you go through. But he does not care about any hard time you go to. To the point where he says it doesn't matter the cross never happened.

Jesus never died. Jesus never rose again. You don't need to repent. You don't need fruit according to the Bible. We can find some other way to heaven because you went through a hard time. In their eyes God's love condones sin.

I have. I have wept even recently over people that I love that believe this nonsense. They believe that grace is like an umbrella over your head and and because Jesus died for you under that umbrella you can lie still committed adultery because you're a human being and and and God understands you human and God doesn't see you because of the umbrella called grace, you know love.

Love does not kiss someone into hell and love does not at any time and in shape or me form. Tell a person who's dying you're not dying and you don't need the medicine. Love says this is what you're going through.

Call me a judge, but I want you to live. I Recently gave one of these people who think they saved now because of some experience they had. Though they believe you can lie still commit adultery and go to heaven.

I mean live it. I said, you know why they killed Jesus. Well, the Bible says so there's a few reasons. But one of the main reasons we found in John chapter 7 verse 7 I want every single one of you to open up your Bibles right now to John chapter 7 verse 7.

Do you know why they killed Jesus? It says you're the world cannot hate me. You cannot hate you but me. Jesus says it hated because I testify of it. That the works thereof are evil. Why did they hate Jesus?

I'll tell you why they hated Jesus because he said you what you're doing is wrong. If you go to people today, I'm not talking about saying to people your blue dress is wrong. The legalist you go to people and tell them it's wrong to sleep around before marriage.

They crossed with you. You're not a good Christian. You're a judge. And then you go to the conservative churches and you show them what a false prophet is and they say you a judge. They sound just like the people who believe In lying stealing committing adultery.

Loving the True Jesus

Let me ask you a question. Do you know what it means to love Jesus? In the 1990s The pastor of Moody Church, he's retired for the last three years. It was nuts. He one of the pastors in the main pastor and they don't really have a pastor for the last three years.

They're playing around one but he wrote a book based on a book by Rev. Zacharias Christ among other gods and. And When he wrote this book in the middle of the book he had a recent illustration of a woman that he knew and This woman I don't know, you know all of you will know the Jehovah's Witnesses or that they exist at least all of you know that there are Mormons and Seventh-day Adventists who are sexed almost like half a cult half a sect and you've got The Freemasons and you go on to the list Scientologists Christian scientists, you know, there's a long list of famous cults.

But there's also thousands and thousands of mini cults if you go from door to door in certain parts of the world. They will sometimes invite you in and you'll find there's literally Statistically I've spoken to government agents who actually work for religious crime among these cults and there's thousands of them popping up everywhere it literally is little house house cults and some of them are dangerous and some of them are just weird and.

And they've invited me in. I've often come to a house knocked on the door. And they said come in and they sit around there and then they do the weirdest stuff and they believe the weirdest things and they Open up Hebrews and they go to Hebrews and they say Hebrews chapter 1 and they read about Christ being above angels and they say God told me That this is talking about the 1800s and then I think oh, wow, that's amazing.

I don't see 1800s anywhere in there and they go to chapter 2 and they see Moses and they say no. I told me it is talking about the 1950s. Boy, they're excited. Oh that God is so good. Anyway, so there's one lady.

There's one lady. She her pastor earlier Baptist pastor. Offended her and So she left that church and she didn't want anything to do with God or church for a few years and eventually after this. She met one of these cults and she came into the cult and she had no testimony of salvation.

She'd never even prayed to be saved. She came into this place and she was so one great grateful because this cult taught her there was a Jesus that's there for you through the hard times and This Jesus he'll carry you when your child dies.