Love in Action — Walter Wilson

God's Love in Action

Now, we go to an old cow to get fresh milk, we go to an old hen to get fresh eggs, we go to an old spring to get fresh water, we go to an old tree to get fresh apples, we'll turn to John 3 .16. Our subject is love in action.

Yesterday morning we saw our love for our Lord that leads us to worship Him. Today we're going to look at our Lord's love towards men. Then let's say the verse together. For God so loves the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

God's Gift of His Son

Now, why did God do that? Why did God give His Son? Well, I'll tell you why. He'd given everything else already. He'd given everything else. Our Lord Jesus made five kingdoms. The mineral kingdom, the lowest, then the vegetable kingdom, and then the animal kingdom, above that the human kingdom, and then the celestial kingdom, and there wasn't anything else to give.

He had given men everything in the wide world that could possibly be imagined before He gave His Son. And none of those seemed to satisfy anybody. Everything, beloved, that you wish you ever had, God gave to Solomon.

Solomon's Wealth and the Vanity of Earthly Possessions

Now, you can't think of one thing. Solomon, I'm told, was worth $17 billion when he died. That's more than Brother Baumann and me put together, John. $17 billion. He built a temple that was lined with thick plates of gold, and in those golden walls there were sockets that held the finest jewels, diamonds and rubies and sapphires and amethysts and so on, that money could buy anywhere in the world.

They were all sitting in these sockets in this temple. He had three wonderful palaces. Now, you think of anything you wish you ever had, beloved, and look at him. He had it. And we think if we had such and such a thing, we'd have the world by the back of the neck.

He had it, and you know what he wrote about it? Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. He had all the money he could use and far more. He had all the gems and jewels. He had his own private orchestra.

He had his own private choir. Now, a lot of these dear folks love music. He had it. He had the finest the world could give. He had the money to buy them, to pay for them. He spoke of all sorts of things in the agricultural life, trees, flowers.

He had them planted. He got them brought in from all over the world. He told you about it in the Book of Ecclesiastes. He had the kind of a garden you wish you had. He had the people to keep the weeds out of it.

He had a landscaping. He had every kind of an animal that he wanted. He had all the wives that he wanted. He had a wife, too. Oh, if I just had such and such a woman. Well, remember, getting married under orange blossoms don't mean you didn't get a lemon.

So many people, they all, if I just had a different companion, then I'd have it wonderful. Well, lots of folks have tried it. And after Solomon got his 700 wives, he wrote over vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

You think of anything at all, beloved, that you wish you had. He had chariots and horses. He had an army that was never once whipped. He had a crown on his head that was never taken from him. He had power.

He had authority. He had everything. Everything that anybody listening to me ever wanted, he had it. And then he wrote over it, vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. That's the reason God had to give something different.

Because he knew very well that gold would never satisfy a human heart. Companionships never would satisfy a human heart. Death comes in. Sin comes in. Disease comes in. All sorts of things come in to destroy fellowships and companionships.

That's the reason he had to give his son. He knew very well all our human hearts, all our desires, all our needs, all our ambitions. He knew that. And having given everything in the world already, and none of it satisfied anybody, he gave his son.

Now remember, beloved, if God in heaven, with all his knowledge and wisdom and ability and understanding, found he had to give Christ to satisfy our hearts, we'd better try finding it—we'd better stop trying to find it anywhere else.

Because God himself couldn't find anything for us except his son. That's one reason he loved men. I'm saying that God so loved the world. That means every kind of a person. The presidents of our universities, the presidents of our railroads, just the same as the folks in the heart of Africa, down in the Mele Peninsula, or the Eskimos.

You stop and think, what would you give to every person in the world to satisfy the craving of his heart? Now you name it. You couldn't give an automobile to a blind man. Nor is giving music lessons to the Eskimos.

What would you give—what could you find anywhere in this world that satisfies every kind of a person, no matter who it is? What would you find? Where could you get anything? Well, you know very well. We're just like children.

You give a lovely doll or toy to the child, and then oh, an hour or two or a day or two, it's gone. And they drop it to get something else. That's just the way we are. Nothing at all satisfies the heart.

I was in a restaurant one time, and this, the fellow that had the restaurant, every time he rang up a charge from somebody taking a bill, he lifted the lid to see how it compared to last year. He was always looking up.

Every time he rang up the thing, he lifted up the lid to see how he was getting on. Well, I saw a man that made a million and a quarter on one deal doing the same thing. He was walking up and down his office.

I went in to congratulate him on making such a fine sum of money. And he made it honestly, too. It was an honest deal. He was just a wise man. He made a million and a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars cash on one deal.

I went in to see him, and I found him just as righteous as he could be. You see, Robert, God so loved the world. He knew very well that nothing in this world would satisfy a human heart and meet his requirements except the Lord Jesus.

Job's Faith Amid Complete Loss

Now, there was another man in the Old Testament, and God took away from him everything he had. Everything. His name was Job. He lost everything he had, except his wife. He should have lost her. Notice what it says?

He lost his herds, his flocks, his crops, his house. That's where it's gone where the wind came from, you know, Job's house. The wind struck the four corners. I chose to, as a cyclone, and tore it up and killed his ten children.

He lost everything he had. You know what he said? Though when he's tried me, I shall come forth like gold. That's what he said. And though in my place worms destroy this body, yet in my place I shall see God.

That dear fellow lost everything. He lost more than you and I ever lost. We never lose as much as he. And yet in all of that, in partners filled with faith and trust and confidence, you see, God, there isn't any substitute for our Lord.

There isn't any. And you can sing, when all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and strength. And I've seen it in my medical work, in my pastoral work. I've seen about everything there is to see in human experience, from the wealthiest to the poorest, and I tell you without any hesitation, the only satisfying thing in the world is to have Jesus Christ.

There just isn't any other. Now notice the passage. There are five miracles in this verse. The first is the miracle of universal love. God so loved the world, anybody, everywhere. You can go to anybody of any color, any station in life, with this precious verse, and say God loves you.

The Miracle of Universal Love

Now that's a miracle. Because you and I can't love everybody. Most of us don't even love all our relatives, let alone other folks. And you're so glad some folks don't live with you, and you go by folks and say you're glad you're not married to them.

Now don't look so innocent. I know human hearts. The gift of a universal love, the miracle of a universal love, that's marvelous. I'll tell you why. Every doctor, at least that's my experience, wants a very difficult case.

Anybody can cure a headache, or a backache, you know, or a stomachache. But to take a real difficult case, that's what every doctor wishes he had. And then see the blessed God come in. You see, I believe in divine healing.

I give the epitaph, and God makes it work. And that's true. And every doctor believes he had a very difficult case to handle. So he can point to that one and say, see, I cured that fella. See what I did to that friend.

See how I saved the life of that person. Every doctor wants that, just like everybody else wants a successful building, an architect, so they can point to it and say, I did that. But God wants bad people.

I remember at the end of a meeting, a woman brought her daughter up to me, and she told me beforehand that the daughter was preacher shy. She wouldn't go near a church. She said, I'm going to bring her tomorrow night to hear a doctor.

I told her, you were a doctor, so she's coming. And when she comes, you give it to her good. No, I said, I won't do that. I'm a Christian. I'm a gentleman. But I'll be as wise as I can be with her. So I looked to the Holy Spirit to show me what to say to her.

When she came up the aisle, I got my point of contact. She had an upside-down question mark fastened down with spit, you know, right in the middle of her forehead up here. And so when I was introduced to her, I said, I'm glad to meet you, Miss Louise.

I know a poem about you. This girl was about 20, 21. You do? I said, yeah, I learned it in Fort Smith, Arkansas, when I was a boy. And I've been looking for the one the poem was written about ever since.

That's about 50 years. And you know, you're the very girl that poem was written about. Dear me, she said, you don't tell me. I said, why is that? I said, there was a little girl, and she had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead.

And when she was good, she was very, very good. When she was bad, she wasn't very bad. That is what it says. I tell you, Dr. Wilson, it says when she was bad, she was horrid. And that's me. When I get mad, I'm three devils.

I said, good for you. I'm glad to hear it. Shake hands with me. And she said, you glad that I'm bad as three devils? I said, I am. Why? I said, because I'm kind of a girl Jesus came to save. He likes the worst kind.

He gets some glory out of saving the worst kind, and you're one of the worst. So come on, sit down. I'll show you how to get saved. And I led her to Christ. God saved her. She was putting up a front against him, bothering, you see.

But when we got down to brass tacks, she really wanted to be saved. Well, God so loved the world, and he could take her in if she was bad as three devils. And he takes the nice ones, they're just as bad, but don't know it.

Isn't that lovely? That's the miracle of a universal love. A gift of eternal, everlasting, wonderful, marvelous love. Why, he should love me as he does. Remember the couplet, how does it go? Thou should love me as thou dost, and be the God thou art.

Is darkness to my intellect, but sunshine to my heart. Now, the next miracle is a miracle of a universal gift. First, universal love. Now, universal gift. Do you know anything you could give to anybody?

The Universal Gift of Christ

You could take a hundred dollar bill over the heart of Africa, they wouldn't want to do it. They wouldn't want twice. They don't have any money. Or down in the Amazon Valley, up among the Eskimos, what would he do with a hundred dollar bill?

Or a thousand dollar bill? No use giving an automobile to a blind man, nor a man with no arm. No use giving a fountain pen to a man with no hands. Can you think of anything now, anything at all, that you could give to everybody, young and old, rich and poor, every kind of nationality?

What would you give them now that would satisfy anybody and everybody you gave it to? You couldn't think of anything. But God did. He found a gift that satisfies the aged. I saw a dear old buddy, 103 years old, as she lay dying, telling the Lord Jesus how much she loved him, and how she was going to see him in just a few minutes, and she did.

I saw a dear old grandmother, 97 years old, when I went in to, I was her doctor. She had her hands up, said, Doctor, why don't Jesus come and get me? I've been waiting for him. I want to see him. He knows I love him.

That night she went to see her lovely Lord. But I've seen the five-year-olds find the same blessed sweetness. Do you know of any gift in all the world that would satisfy anybody, everybody, anywhere, except the gift God found?

And then this gift is worth something. This is a lovely gift that is valuable every minute of every day as long as you live. Other gifts we don't. I have things at home. I have esteem. You know, people give me things at Christmas, and then I haven't any use for them, so I give them away the next Christmas to my relatives.

You know, save me some money. You know how it is with gifts. You get things and you act as if you don't need them anymore, and when you got them you didn't really care for them, but you looked awful nice, you know, and said, Oh, you dear sweet friend, you give me such a valuable gift, and then you stick it up in the cupboard.

But God found a gift. I want to tell you something. I don't need to tell you, I'm sure. The longer you have that gift, the more valuable he is. Remember the song, Oh, How You Love Him When You Know Him?

And the experiences we have in life just make you love him all the more. You're all the more precious. I know him far better now than when I trusted him 63 years ago. Far better. The universal gift of God, a miracle that God would find one thing you can give to a child or to the university professor, to the profound thinker, or the one that isn't able to think too deeply, makes no difference.

Educated or uneducated, makes no difference who the person is. What a joy it is to have that gift of gifts. All other gifts in one. Blessed be God, our God. Then there's the third gift, the gift of universal faith, that whosoever believeth in him.

Faith as Trusting Christ Completely

Now you use your wits and imagination and see if you can think of any other one thing that anybody in the world can do. Anything at all. From a child to the aged. Do you know anything else that everybody could do?

If salvation was a gift, was given for a quarter, there are millions of people that never see any money. They don't deal in money. If it was walking across this little platform, paralyzed men couldn't walk, paralyzed women couldn't walk.

If it was for reading a page in the Bible, there are multitudes that can't read in any language, don't have a language. Can you think of any other one thing in the universe of God that anybody can do in the wide world except to believe what God says?

Anybody can do that, that wants to. That whosoever believeth in him, and remember that believing and trusting are two different things. They are sort of alike, they kind of go together, they're Siamese twins, you can't divide them very well.

But you know when Blondin walked across the tightrope across Niagara Falls up here, wherever it is, and got over to the other side, he saw Walter Hughes there, the evangelist. And Walter knew Blondin over in London.

And Walter was standing there at the end of the rope, and when Blondin jumped off, Walter grabbed his hand and says, Blondin, that's the biggest thing you ever did in your life. That was a wonderful thing.

He said to, Blondin said to Walter, do you think I could walk back to the other side safely? Yes, I've seen you do this, I've seen you walk across those buildings in London, across the street. You can do anything you want to on a tightrope.

Now listen, Walter, do you believe I can really go across that tightrope back to the United States side safely? Absolutely. All right, he said, get on my back and I'll take you over. I'll give you three guesses whether Walter got on or not.

He said he believed, and he did believe, there's no question about that. But he wouldn't risk his neck on it. He wouldn't get on there and go. Here's a lovely, a lovely miracle, that God lets you and me trust Jesus Christ.

Trust your life to him. Trust your soul to him. Trust your heart to him. Trust yourself to him. Trust your family to him. Trust everything to him. Just hand it over and say, help yourself to me, blessed Lord.

Isn't that a wonderful gift? Isn't that a wonderful miracle? Then the fourth one is the miracle of a universal preservation. My, the money we spend to preserve ourselves. I read that thirty-two million dollars was spent in New York in one year on things to preserve the face, just the face alone.

God's Universal Preservation

So it'd make us look beautiful. And some of us need it. Thirty-two million dollars to preserve our looks. Think of the money we spend to preserve our health. Traveling here and there, taking all sorts of medicines, millions and millions of dollars worth every year to preserve our health.

We seek to preserve the clothes, our shoes, our garments. I always buy second-hand suits myself. So as you see, a sheep wore this before I got it, and a cow wore these before I got them. But we spend all sorts of money to preserve our lives.

Look at the money we spend to preserve our properties, conservation of soil, and to keep the rivers from eating the banks away. The money we spend on paint to preserve the wood. We spend millions and millions of dollars every year to preserve things, containers for shipping goods, to preserve them from being broken on the way.

And furnishings for metal to keep them from rusting. God has a preservative for you yourself. Notice what it says? That whosoever believes in him should not perish. Now, it doesn't say your soul won't perish.

That's true enough. That's what it says. It says you won't perish. And when you get saved, he saves your voice. You begin using it for things worthwhile. He saves your pocketbook. You begin spending your money on things that are worthwhile.

He saves your talents and gifts. You begin using them for things that are worthwhile. He saves your time. You begin spending it on things worthwhile. He saves you. And nothing else in this wide world will preserve a person except Christ Jesus.

There isn't any other preservative. And God found a way to preserve us. And then the last one, the fifth one, the gift of a universal life. Now the French don't care for the Germans, and the Ethiopians don't care for the Italians, and the Japanese don't care for the Chinese, and so on.

The Universal Life That Unites Believers

All human lives separate us. But God has found a life that unites us, so that the French and the Germans and the Japanese and the Chinese and the Ethiopians can all sit down together and love our Lord and worship him and serve him and sing hallelujah together and love each other.

That's a miracle, that God found a life that superimposes all other lives and knits our hearts together and makes us lovers of one another without any regard at all to our nationality or our station in life.

The millionaire sits down with the pauper at the Lord's table, and the both of them sing about the majestic sweetness that's enthroned from the Savior's brow, and they love it. Therefore, God has found a life that knits our hearts together, removes the enmities that are occasioned by racial differences or financial differences.

Beloved, you remember John 3 .16. It's God's miracle verse for you and for me. And what a fall in love with our lovely Lord. He did it for us. He gave himself to us. It's all wrapped up in the person of Christ Jesus, our Lord.

And when we trust him, I mean trust him, hand yourself over to him, your life will be a life that's free from sorrow, not from grief. You'll have plenty of grief until you go to heaven. But free from the things that hurt the heart so badly.

For he gives peace, and when he gives us peace, who then, who then can make trouble? Let us pray.