We Love Him — John Ridley

Human Nature and the Love of God

You know, dear friends, to us, loving is a difficult business, real loving, because our natures are contrary to it. Paul tells us that, speaking about the nature unregenerate in man, he says, hateful and hating one another.

And you know how natural it is to resent. Immediately, you feel the self-life hurt, where, contrary to love, but with God, it's quite different. The quiet, restful, rigor-like flow of the divine nature of the man is love, and there has been love.

Christ's Love Manifested in His Incarnation and Death

Love. And when Jesus came into the world, love was manifested in human form. What the Jews said of Jesus by the grave at Lazarus, as they saw him weeping with Mary and Martha, look how he loved him, might be said of Jesus Christ in relation to every man and every woman.

But the whole, how he loved him. One psalmist puts it like this, Jesus taught me when a stranger. Love divine laid hold on me. Love incarnate in the manger. Love in thinking on the breeze. And then Paul, especially, that great poet of the Methodist revival, brings it home in one of his great hymns.

I know thee, Savior, who thou art. Jesus, the feeble sinner's friend. Nor wilt thou with the night depart, but sigh and love me to the end. Thy mercies never shall remove. Thy nature and thy name is love.

How did God firstly discover that? How did the other poets discover that the name and the nature of God is love? Probably by a twofold vision. The vision of the manger and of the cross. The vision of life.

The vision of death. The vision of birth. The vision of blood shedding. The vision of Bethlehem. The vision of Calvary. That's how they discovered it. And what they discovered, I can discover. And you can discover.

That man do form upon a cross with blood and wounds and bruises all over his body. That marred face more marred than any man. That agonized form wrestling with the pain of crucifixion and the burden of a world seen.

That whirlwind of abuse. That fire of anger. That earthquake of eruption. And then a still small voice. He first loved us. God commended his love for us. In that body the yet sinners Christ died for us.

He first loved us. And because of that, dear friends, because of that, the apostle says he loved. He loved. He loved the Savior because he first loved us. That's on the natural. That's on the right. That's on the response of any grateful heart.

He loved the Savior. If you read the New Testament carefully, I think you'll find on nearly every page of that blessed book a portrait of Christ's dying love. A portrait of his dying love. Have you ever carried photographs about the Jews in two world wars?

Snapshots Versus Studying Christ's Love

In my children's practice I carried photographs just to keep loved ones in front of me. To be able to glance at their faces and to remember them. And one of the saddest sights I ever saw in action was a tallied Australian souvenir hunter taking from a German prisoner a photograph of his wife and family.

The man was desperate in his own language. He grabbed the photograph. The Australian souvenir hunter pulled it from him. And the tears came rolling down the man's face. That he did take a photograph of his wife and family.

Dormant as the season is. And how they loved to look at those portraits as dear ones in the homeland. And I was a businessman away in the southwest. I remember reaching one of those lonely outback townships.

And I was asked by a certain Baptist man there, Would you go down brother and see our new Baptist pastor? He's a very young man. He's only just started in New York. And he's terribly homesick. And he got here two or three days ago.

And he's wiped down in the ditch. Don't have a word for this. So I went down to where the Baptist pastor was staying. In a very gloomy room. A bed-sitting room. In a very gloomy house. In a gloomy street.

And to tell the truth it was a pretty gloomy church he'd gone to. As well. And I could understand the poor fellow's feelings. He'd come out in his first long separation from home. He was very young. He had to do his studies.

And he had to build up the church. He'd had a very poor welcome. And there he was sitting. Ever since I saw the poor man down in the dumps. I saw one way. There he was sitting and his head was down. The gloom of the womb was all around him.

Right in front of him was his table with his books. And there a large photograph of a very nice young lady. Just there he straight at him. And after we'd had a few words together. And I tried to be a little sympathetic to him.

I said, oh brother who is this lady here in the photograph? And he dropped his head lower still. Poor fellow. Why he was aggravating his own sickness. He was stabbing himself through by that photograph.

But he would have it so you know. He always have it so. Though it's so aggravating. You see that photograph. That portrait of a loved one. Alexander McGowan. The great expositor once said. You know the trouble with many of us Christians is this.

Just this. That we spend our days like amateur photographers. Going about taking snapshots all over the place. Snapshots. So that's not the way to excelling photographers. You sit down. And study the view.

Let its beauty soak in. See its splendor. Get it at the right angle. Take a good photographer. But the trouble with us. We just take snapshots. And I hurry five minutes by the bed in the morning. And less time at night perhaps.

And then into bed. You'll never teach us for love of Christ. Never. Oh what time those early saints spent. Upon adoring love to Christ. How John must have studied. The portrait of Christ. Love to him.

To all men. How he must have studied it. How he must have looked upon them. Until out of that burning lover's heart. There came these words. Behold. What manner of love. The father hath bestowed upon us.

That we should be called the sons of God. Quite wonderful. The passionate ball. Sits down in front of the photograph. Of Christ's dying love. And he studies it. He studies it from every angle. He views it in different directions.

And then he cries out. To know the love of Christ. To pass us not. To pass us not. And then you think of other great names. Samuel Rutherford of Amherst. One of the great lovers of the Church of Scotland.

He produced a book the like of which I've never read. Spurgeon, the most practical preacher, once said. Let the world know. That Spurgeon considers Rutherford's letters. The nearest to divine inspiration.

Amongst the mere writings of men. I haven't such another book in my life. As Rutherford's letters. And Rutherford so studied the love of Christ. Until he cried out. Oh. For eternity's leisure. To look upon him.

Oh, for the long days of summer ages. To stand before him. And to enjoy him. He saw them in love with Christ. That's it. That's it. And the great Baptist missionary, Judson of Burma. Who endured more sorrows and sufferings, I think, than any missionary.

Cried out in his deathbed. The love of Christ. The love of Christ. Why, to study for eternity. So it is, dear friend. You'll never get to the end of it. You'll never fully understand it. You'll never fathom its depth.

You'll never stand its height. You'll never measure its width. The love of Christ. Oh, to study that photograph. That portrait of his dying love. You'll love him. You'll love him. You'll love him. Of course you do.

Say, I love him. I love him. You know, when Lord Nelson was the hero of Great Britain. He fell in love with another man's wife. One of the saddest stories in all of history. England's greatest hero. And the most lovable man at that.

Fell in love with another man's wife. Lady Hamilton. Wife of the British ambassador to the nation. And she loved him passionately as he loved her. And though it caused a domestic tragedy, it never for one moment reflected Nelson from his duties.

And he died saving England in the great battle of Trafalgar. And poor Lady Hamilton. For ten years outlived the hero of Trafalgar. And then she was found dead in the miserable garret in Calais, France.

In a pew of dead hens. The plucking of portrait of Nelson to her grave. All that was left was the portrait. And you remember how Hardy stooped and kicked this great captain's admiral. Just before the death of Nelson.

And Captain Hardy lived on. Away many years after Nelson's death. But then he came to the hour to die. Captain Hardy asked for the portrait of Nelson. But the place in the coffin with him is a man to love, you see.

And the poor woman's back supported to her breast. And the great captain asked that it be kept by his dead body in the coffin. But I'll give you something better than a chance of beating. Oh, I'll give you something better.

Beholding Christ and Being Transformed

Listen to this discourse. Listen to the great apostle Paul speaking. We all, with open faith, behold it as in a mirror. The glory of the Lord. As changed from the same image that is Lord to glory. Changed by the same image that is Lord to glory.

As by the Lord to spirit. That is looking as in a glass as the love of Christ was then poured. And so they become love. That's it. That's it. And so they love like that. Though, as in that remarkable story by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

A strange story about a boy who used to go out of his home away in one of the districts of old England. And he walked some distance to a quarry. And he looked upon a great hill. And there, right in the centre of the hill, in a stone, there was a noble face carved.

And the boy would look on the face, and look on it. And look on it, and then come back to his home. And years afterwards, the neighbours said to the parents, You know, your boy is just the same as that portrait, that face on the hillside.

Well, he's taken likeness to himself. By looking so nicely at that face on the rock. That's how they become like from nothing unto God. They love him. They love him. Because he first loved them. And they love the same because he first loved them.

They love the same. The same. Because we do. Because we love them. That's why we love them. Because we love them. We love the same. So this, you know, you know, you're my disciples. If you have love, one to another.

One to another. That would prove you're a disciple of mine. Oh Lord, I thought if I had power, that would prove. If I had eloquence, that would prove. If I gave large gifts, that I would. If I was considerate of the poor, if I was friendly to them.

And I just know, he says, this will prove that you're my disciples. If you've got love, one to another. Love. I tell you, by nature we're not lovers, friends. David is one of the grandest figures in the Old Testament.

Forgiveness, Restoration, and Love Within the Church

David was a man after God's own heart. Now listen to what happened to David. Adultery. Murder. Deception. The tricks of sin. He fell in love with her. And yet when David said from a broken heart, I have sinned against the Lord.

God forgave him. God took away his sin. That is not God. God loved him freely. Loved him freely, then he forgave him. But I want to tell you, his family and his friends didn't. They didn't forgive him.

Why, his own son led to the occasion that split his kingdom. Absolutely. David's dearest friend, the Hippopotam, turned traitor to him. Shimei of the house of Saul, whom David had spared from death, picked up stones as the poor king went out a fugitive, and hurled them at him, and cursed him with blasphemy.

Poor David. His friends didn't forgive him. His friends didn't love him. Oh dear friends, that's what happens frequently in the search of God. God forgives. God takes away. God pardons. But he won't. A brother is saved, and he comes into the assembly, and he begins to act with a good deal of self-confidence.

He does this, and he does that, and he does the other. And he makes a mistake or two. Perhaps he speaks to somebody and asks them to come further. You go further with them. Make a stand for Christ, and the other one resents it, and is a bit of an upset.

And then somebody takes it on themselves to rebuke this brother. This brother. Ah, that's not the way, dear friends. That's not the way. That's not God's way. Kindly little word may be said, but we look behind the scenes, and we see a man who's trying to do something to Christ's life.

And we love him. A sister has a daughter. Sad, moral, poor. And her sister's wife in the assembly says that they don't want to speak to her. Get together and whisper. Make her feel embarrassed. Make her see the signs as though she isn't wanted.

And then she says,. They exist away. They who should have got right round her.

And loved her back into blessing. Could do well. Throws her out.

And I don't know how many thousands of people have been driven from the sanctuaries of God by lack of love. I know they have, though. I know they have. How differently Jesus acts. Peter denied him three times.

He wrote some curses. But when Jesus Christ rose from the dead and met that woman, you remember what he said to her? Go, tell my disciple. And Peter. And Peter. They give his Peter out because of his love for her.

I love him. That's love. And I want to tell you, dear friends, that the love that can't love on in spite of resentment, in spite of failure, in spite of mistakes, can't love on, love on, is not really love.

It's not love born of God. No, it's just a reception that rises or falls according to the state of another person's standing or love. Not once in this New Testament. Not twice. Not seven times. Not ten times.

Not twelve times. But fourteen times. Fourteen times, Jesus. And how to love one another. Love one another. Love one another. You know, I ought to know, because I've just written a book on love and this is a hundred chapters.

Better know something about the subject than sitting on this morning. I tell you, it's wonderful, wonderful, the great love in the Scripture. Fourteen times. Look at a little girl, and she's learning her text for the Sunday school.

She's only five years of age. Can you hear her going over the text? Love one another. Love one another. Love one another. What's that mean? Says her other little sister, about four years of age. Don't you know? She said.

Why, that means I've got to love you and you've got to love me. I'm one and you're the other. That's simple theology. Little lips. Simple theology. But true theology. Sublime theology. Yes, love one another.

Loving Sinners Because Christ Loved Us

Henry Drummond, you know, who wrote the greatest thing in the world, tells us about a nice young woman who grew up in a trough and ministered wonderfully and timeless in love in the church and was a blessing and a benediction.

And she went into the thirties and she stepped up towards the forties.

And some of the day people will just, you know, get interested in little links and their relationships. Why didn't she ever marry? Oh, well, look. She wears a locket around her neck. And inside that locket, it says, and I don't know, but they say that there's a photograph of a lover who killed herself once.

And no, no, it wasn't that. It says something else. He garbled, you know. But he never told her that. No, but he did say it. I've heard somebody say that. But anyway. And so they talked about that locket.

It was the suspicious thing about that family family thing. And then, just as she reached the forties, she passed away. And then they opened the locket. Someone opened the locket. The truth was out, all right.

Just a little bit of paper on which she had written, with her own handwriting, who having not seen. Oh, well. She loved herself. She loved Christ, and she discovered that he didn't love her. She only loved the saints because he first loved her.

And then, of course, it goes in, I must say that she loved sinners because he first loved her. Of course she did because she loved herself. The only difference with us to anyone who hasn't come to Christ is that their sin is under the blood and their sin is without the blood.

Their sin is saved by the grace of God and their sin is under the wrath of God and don't come to the grace of God if they love him. Because Jesus did. Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Jesus sat down with the publicans and the harlots and the sinners and he had his meal with them and he shed his kindness and his grace over them.

Jesus touched the rotting, leprous body with his hand.

That was a remarkable thing to do in eastern countries. That was a profounding thing to do.

Jesus put his two fingers into the deaf ears and opened them. Jesus clasped the two eyes that had been blinded and deaf with the presence of Christ and said, now you go and watch in silence. And he went and came to.

Jesus went into the room and took the dead hand of the little girl of twelve.

Oh Lord! What was the child again? I came to the world to save sinners. And he lifted that little girl up and she was raised from the grave.

Oh, sweet love of Christ! Who knew? Who knew the death of sin and that her life was saved? Hudson Taylor went out to China following Christ and he went out with the same spirit. I love these Chinese, he said.

And he began to work for them and he couldn't get to their hearts. And he decided he'd rest like a Chinese. He'd pray them all. And then he decided he'd eat like a Chinese. And he'd live like a Chinese.

And he went down and became no more a woman, he run them, run them, run them in hunger. Until he died. Worn out Chinese. That's what he said. Worn out Chinese. That's why I'm listening. Some of you may have heard of a Chinese man named Luke Duke.

He sold himself as a slave in South America. That's the thing I couldn't do, sell myself into slavery. He sold himself to work in the mines in South America for one purpose, that he might reach the coolies.

The poor Chinese coolies that were lost in their sin. And as a slave working with them, he preached Christ to them. And after five years, he had a church of 200 converted Chinese. And a great Baptist preacher, Dr. A .J. Gordon of Boston, said, when you look at Luke Duke, you can say, while many men have even laid down their lives for Christ, it took a Chinese Christian to sell his liberty for Christ.

The Love of Souls and the Image of Christ

But it is true. He loved the Chinese, didn't he? That's what I'm saying. Yet their friends, when it comes to a meeting, find them to gaze. You'll find that you can't get people to love souls. They come out one night out of about four in the week.

That's a fair deal, they say. They hardly put in an extra effort to pray for half an hour a day to solve number one. If you put on a prayer meeting before the meetings and they don't ask the pastor, will, you don't find them there.

And yet they say, I love God. Love God? Till they haven't seen. And even they have seen going down to death. They don't know. They long to see something. No, I tell you, it's reality. I want reality. I long for it.

If I meet a man, the image of Christ in him, no matter what he might say, no matter what label he might come to, it's a Roman Catholic Baptist Methodist, but he's got the image of Christ on him. I love him.

But I shall be in heaven with that man. I shall dwell in God's city with that man. He's my brother in the Lord. Isn't that so with you? Oh, yes. You know, I'm certain of this, that many another hath come into the dust of sacrifice for love of their children.

I saw one mother do it in my own time. And most of you can remember the mother who was willing to do it. I know that some men have come right into a collapse, a nervous breakdown, for love of business.

I know some soldiers that have given their life, blood on the battlefield, for love of country. Oh, Pickling said, never the lotus flowers, never the wildflowers wait that the soul went out in the east wind of God for England's sake.

That's all that it was. That's good. What about love of souls? What about love of souls? Oh, I'm too ashamed, dear friend. When I think of the little love I have, though I've been laboring for souls for thirty-odd years, the little love I really have for them.

I tell you, it's a sad thing when you can't even walk up a sorrow or a tear for the love of the lost. And when we've got the opportunity as we have now together, as the Lord's neighbors, to try and fill up the lifeline, you do your best to cooperate because you love them.

Sometimes we say, and we say it greatly, we don't agree with certain systems, and I know that's right, but we must never, never embrace all the people, the souls in that system, when we say that. You know, amongst the Roman Catholics there have been some remarkable saints.

Dr. A. J. Gordon, that great Baptist preacher, once said Catherine of Siena was a pearl of piety and purity in the midway of the Roman Catholics. And Dr. A. J. Gordon quotes, and he was an out-and-out Baptist of the famous order, he quotes how Catherine of Siena used to pray to God for the salvation of souls.

She'd scrawl heaven's throne. She'd plead with Christ to lose his power upon the poor souls that mend. She'd stretch her hand up into the distance as though she was laying hold upon the garments of her Savior.

Oh Lord, she'd say, Lord, Lord Jesus, promise me you'll save them.

And one day, a man seemed to come down and just call her. And she'd tell her, do you see the man? So she had heart.

And Dr. A. J. Gordon doesn't need to tell me the application of that. You'll never be a soul lover or a soul winner until you know something. Something that the fellowship of Christ says. So they're not swept up like the man who sleeps up for sleep.

So they have to do the rest of the work. Go on! Off to travel into the kingdom of Christ. And some of us, you know, can't pay the price. They try to make people pay no share of the price. And you will do your part.

And we'll face to the glory of Christ and love of souls, love of saints, and love of Savior.