A Return to Functional First Century Christianity - Part 1 — Peter Brandon

Perfect Love in Romans 5

I'm just going to read from Romans 5 and we'll read the first 10 verses. I won't be able to go all through the chapter, but we shall just expound a few of these verses tonight. Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace, wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope makes not a shame because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly, for scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Much more then being now justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved.

By his life. May God bless to us the reading of the Bible. In Romans 5 we have a description of perfect love. You will realize that there is nothing perfect in this world. If you were to be asked to describe perfect furniture, a perfect car, a perfect aeroplane, a perfect house, you would find yourself up against an infinite impossibility.

Because we do not know what perfection is. So tonight I am going to speak upon the subject of perfect love. And you will all agree with me pure love is the greatest faculty that we have in this human composition of ours.

And perfect love may almost seem an impossibility. But I want to explain it to you tonight from the word of God. John tells us that perfect love casts out all fear. And you will agree with me that if there is such a thing as perfect love, it is the greatest thing in the universe.

And that is the subject tonight. Now first of all I want to show you that perfect love must be knowledgeable. There must be no blindness in it at all. Perfect love must be practical and sacrificial. It must give and give and give.

The Knowledgeable and Miraculous Nature of God's Love

And perfect love must be a miracle. Why? Because God must do something in our lives so as to insert a love that we have never had before. And if I can put those three facts over to you, and if you want it very simply, the men whom God loves, the manner of God's love, and the miracle of God's love, then I am sure tonight we will all get a blessing.

Now when we love, we can only love people that are likeable. No one can fall in love with a person that constantly irritates them. We may be able to like them, we may be even gracious to them, but no one can positively love an enemy.

We haven't that propensity. One philosopher has said, Love is blind. Marriage is an eye-opener. Now you will smile at that, but that's perfectly true. When you begin to know the person that you have married, then you get your eyes open, and we all see failures.

And that's why many marriages break up. When God loves the human race, he loves it because he knows it. And therefore he describes the human race under three headings. He says, when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly.

Now the word ungodly has to be strictly translated within the confines of its content. And therefore the word means to be totally unlike God. Here the word is associated with weakness. When we were yet without strength.

Now what does that mean? A young man from Aberdeen was swimming the channel, that little bit of water between Dover and Calais, that's 21 miles long. He was breaking all records. He got three miles from the French coast, and then he said to the man that was in the boat with him, or helping him, pull me in.

The man couldn't believe it. And when he was pulled into this boat, he collapsed in the seat, and he said this, can't make it. Finished. And then he collapsed. Now that is the basic meaning of the word ungodly, someone that can't make it.

Now what does that mean? I've often spoken to people in my own town, and especially in the city of London, and I've discovered this, that hundreds would like to be Christians, but they say they can't make it.

One man said I couldn't live without swearing. One person said I couldn't live without a drink. One man said I couldn't live without a fag. One man said he couldn't live without lust. Would like to be a Christian, but I can't make it.

Dear friends, this is the news, none of us can make it. Can I prove it to you? There has never lived one human being that's kept the dictates of his own conscience, not one. There has never lived a human being apart from the Lord Jesus that's ever kept all the same commandments.

We've broken almost every one. In fact, I believe most of us have made New Year's resolutions, and we've made promises only to break them. And somehow in our minds we've got this kind of hunch, I can't be a Christian, I'll never make it.

This is the good news. God knows all about our organic weakness. He knows all about our besetting sins that master us. And yet, He still loves us. Still loves us. And loves us deeply. Isn't that marvelous?

Humanity's Sinful Nature and the Power of Sin

The next word He uses, jagged and rutted, it's the word sinner. But God commends His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Now this word needs to be carefully explained.

If we lean over the platform of evangelical preachers and tell the congregation they're poor lost sinners, we shall upset them unless we explain what we mean. Some people where I live think it's almost a Christian swear word.

When you use the word sinner. Now what does it mean? It's completely different from the word ungodly for that's associated with weakness. This word is linked with strength. So what does it mean? When we lift up a little baby we love that child and if you don't love babies there must be something wrong with you.

Children are lovely even when they're rascals. But when we lift up a baby and we've all done this if we have our own children we must tell ourselves this that child is born with the genes of sin in it.

And no matter how much that mother may try she will never stop that child from sinning. Why? Because sin went right into the genes of that child. When that child gets a little older you will suddenly see strength.

I saw in London just before I came here one of the most beautiful little girls I've ever seen in a shop. And her mother called her and she said this I'm not coming! The strength the rebellion in that beautiful child.

And we've all got that rebellious nature in us. When we get older we find that there's a power in us that we can't control. And this is how Paul puts it there's the law of our minds that longs to do that which is respectable and good.

And within us there's the law of sin that's a gravity that pulls us down again. And that great moralist was trying to fight sin with willpower it got him right on the ground until he cried out Oh wretched man that I am!

Who shall deliver me? Haven't you all been like that? Defeated by the power of sin. Now I'm going to do something that's a little unkind and uncultured but I do it to help you. Have you ever seen the strength of sin being expressed?

Here is a man talking to his wife and she's irritating him. He goes on talking and she says something else and then he becomes red. The conversation increases in rapidity and all of a sudden he explodes!

He goes like a maniac. Why does he get like that? Because of the power of sinning. Here is a young couple and they're not married and they're trying to keep themselves pure and they go too far and then the vortex of love grips them and they fall into sin and they feel they could kick themselves.

Why did they do it? There was a power in them that they couldn't control. The strength of sin. But this is the miracle. God knows all about our rebellion and yet he still loves us. Still loves us. What a God!

God's Love for His Enemies

And then he uses the word enemy. Now my dear friends, this must be very carefully translated otherwise we shall give the wrong impression of our God. May I say this? There's not a tinge of bitterness in the heart of God.

God is love. All the attributes of God are baptised in love. The enemy is on the part of a human being. Now in order to do this I'm going to do something that's very untheological to get to the point.

I'm going to imagine that we can almost make a human being. Not really human, but nearly. And then we bring this being into our house and we join him up with our children. We show him a few of our laws, which are very few, that all the family keeps.

And then we share all our inheritance with him and we lavish our love upon him. And after six months we find him vandalising our property, hurting our children, violating our laws, bringing corruption into our homes.

And then we have a talk together. What are we going to do? If you've got patience you can stand it for 18 months. But after that your patience would be exhausted. What do we do with a dog that bites? You know what we do.

What would we do with that human being? Put it down. Listen to this. Man has been violating the laws of God for 3000 years, treading over all his creation, even violating the laws of nature, until the little green world that we're in is like a cesspool.

Yet he still loves us. He still loves us. Friends, doesn't that break you down? It does me. I could wait to think after all my failures. God still loves me. But then you say, Brother Peter, you are almost condoling sin.

No. A mother picks up a child that may be dying with cancer, and I've often seen this. And she positively loves her baby. But she hates the disease that's killing it. God infinitely loves you, but hates sin.

And that's why he judges. But get the thought. God knows the very worst about us, but still infinitely loves us. Let's turn away from the human family, and let's look at the love of God. But God commends his love.

Christ's Intervention and the Sacrificial Cross

That word, but, is an intervention. If we went through the Old Testament and saw history from the eyes of God, we would see God intervening and intervening. The moment sin came into the world, he intervened.

Thank God for that. The moment the world in the Antediluvian period reached the pitch where men were destroying one another because of sin, he intervened with the flood. He intervened when men and women were violating even the law of conscience and brought in the law of God.

But 2 ,000 years ago, he intervened in love. When his son came into this world, listen to this. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And every time you write the date, you're not putting after Caesar, after Alexander the Great, after Plato and Aristotle, the great Greek philosophers.

When you write the date, you are putting AD and I domini, which means after Christ. And that means God intervening in love. And dear friends, for 2 ,000 years, he has been dealing with the human race in love.

And thank God, he's still dealing with the human race now in love. But here there's an illustration of love that's brilliant. But we can't understand this until we understand the Roman background. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet penitent for a good man even some would dare to die, but God commends his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Now what does that mean? In the time of the apostle and in the Roman city, they had a vicarious sentence. We haven't got it in England and you haven't got it in Australia, but there are two states in America where a person can do a vicarious sentence.

Now what is it? If you feel that a person has been wrongly accused, you can stand in his shoes and do his sentence. In the time of the Romans, there were judges that were not worth their salt. Many of them were governed by bribes and they were unjust men.

And the apostle describes a man who is righteous coming into the courtroom and would you believe it, the judge condemns this man when he knows he hasn't committed the crime of which he has been accused.

Now says the apostle, how many will die for a righteous man? Just one, that's all. Then he brings into the courtroom a man who is good, a benefactor, someone we revere and love. And we cannot believe that this man is being accused of guilt.

And this evil judge finds him guilty and the challenge is thrown out, who will die for him? He says just a very few. Then he brings into the courtroom a rascal, a villain of society. Let me explain. As we look upon this man, he is weak to do any good at all.

As we look upon him, he is strong to do evil. As we watch the movement of his eyes and we hear his language, we can see his sadistic, vandalistic, cruel, and maniac for crime. And this judge finds him guilty and there is a cynical, unloving laugh and he says, who will die for him?

And we're shocked. The door of heaven opens and Jesus Christ says, I will. I will. You see, he says, that God commends his love toward us in the while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. But then you say, Brother Peter, that's all language.

Yes, but listen to this. That love is manifest. I think I can tell my congregation the love of God is devoid of the smallest particle of hypocrisy. The love of God is absolutely genuine. It's real. And he says, this is the love of God, that Christ, his son, should die for us, that many people have died.

During the war, I was on bomb disposal work and we were called to a place where a bomb was unexploded and one of these rockets had fallen and brought the whole street down and yet there they believed there was a woman and four children.

We were digging in all the rubbish to try and find the bomb and then we came to an inside Anderson's shelter, an iron cage where people used to try and rescue themselves from the debris. And when we got to this iron cage, we were digging around it and we came to a body.

It's hard to explain this. And when we lifted up that mother's body, it crumbled in our hands. And underneath that woman there were four children, unconscious, but alive. And she became a human air raid shelter for her children.

That's love. But this is deeper. When Jesus Christ went to the cross, he didn't go there for his children. He went there for the ungodly, for the sinners, for those who were in it. And when he hung upon the cross, he didn't hung upon that cross or hang upon that cross just to show physical love.

He went a step further. Can I put it to you like this? If you could see one sin as God sees one sin, you would have a terrible shock. If you were asked to bear the responsibility for that one sin, no matter how much you loved a person, you would never do it.

When Jesus was hanging on that cross, that sinless son of God, he took the responsibility for the sins of the world. And as God brought judgment upon him, he cried, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

And then finished. But that's a different word. Do you remember we were speaking about that Abaddonian that was swimming the channel, breaking all records? He got three miles from the French coast and said, Pull me in.

And said one word, finished. It meant he was finished. But when the Lord Jesus said finished, it didn't mean that he was finished. What did it mean? Let's illustrate. The world's greatest artist was painting his masterpiece in Rome.

And after 18 months of brilliant painting, he went into the studio and put the last spot of paint on the canvas. And he threw the brush down and said, finished. The masterpiece was done. When Jesus Christ hung on that cross, he said, finished.

The masterpiece of God's love was revealed. He bare our sins in his own body on the tree. And God raised him from the dead. And so God now, through the death of the Lord Jesus, commends his love to you.

Now friends, can I put it to you like this? How many people are here tonight who have a loved one that actually died for them? I guarantee there wouldn't be one. And yet your creator, Jesus Christ, actually died on account of your sins.

That's how much he loves you. But then there's another word that we don't really understand. But God commends his own love toward us. What does that mean? It means communication, first of all. I shall never forget the first time I saw the world's greatest reservoir up there in the mountains of Cape Town.

And when I saw it, dear friends, it took my breath away. I couldn't understand how the human beings could make a sea of water like that. And then I saw these six massive pumping stations pumping the water all over the Cape Peninsula.

Then I saw something that touched me. I looked down from the mountain and I saw a rondaveau, a place where an African lady lived. And she came out with a rusty old kettle. She came out to the standpipe.

She put the kettle underneath the pipe. And all that water was being communicated to her. God's infinite love, the reservoir of Calvary is Calvary. And that love is being communicated to you now. It's coming to you.

It's coming to you. It's coming to you. And the kettle is your body. And he wants to put that love of God within you. Isn't that tremendous? And what a joy for a simple London preacher to stand here tonight and commend the love of God.

The Holy Spirit Pours God's Love into the Heart

Can you think of a higher privilege? But then there is something here, quite frankly, that's mind-boggling. Paul says,. And love and hope makes not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.

The word shed abroad is brilliant. If you're fond of underlining, underline that word shed abroad. It's one great word. And what does it mean? God pours out his love in effusion that, of course, may not be understood by our younger people.

He pours out his love in unrestrained boundless. How can I explain this? The first time I saw the Niagara, when the river was in spate, again I was spellbound. And I looked at that water for ten minutes and then looked at myself and I was soaked through with the spray.

And it looked as though I'd fallen in the water. I felt awful. But I only got the spray. Didn't get the force of it. Then there were some people that had more money than me and they went into a boat and they got right near the falls and they got more of the spray.

But they only got the spray. And would you believe it, this is materialism. There were some that had more money that went underneath the falls. But they only got the spray. Only got the spray. This thus says, you haven't the spray of God's love.

You've got the full force. You see, if you stood under the Niagara, it would kill you. But hallelujah, you can take the full force of God's love. You say, well how does he do that? My dear friends, through the Holy Spirit.

You see tonight, what God wants to do in your life, He wants to cleanse you from all sin righteously because the Lord Jesus died for you. The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. Then He wants to put the Holy Spirit within you.

And when the Holy Spirit comes within you, the love of God is shed abroad in your heart. For the first time, we've had a break with the public. They came to gospel meetings like this and frightened us.

When they came in, they had Mohican hair cut, feisty pimps through their nose and ears, bother jackets with chains and razors all over them, bother skirts and bother trousers and great bother boots. And those boys came every night and girls, and then they trusted the Lord.

And I went back and spoke to one boy. I said, Simon, when you became a Christian, what was the greatest thing the Lord did for you? And do you know what he said? He said, He took all the kill out of my heart and He filled me with love.

That's it. The love of God is shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Ghost. God doesn't put in us a new kidney, a new liver, a new physical life or heart. He puts within us the mighty love of God. Now I'm going to ask you a question.

Receiving Christ and Letting the Light In

Would you like this love of God in your heart tonight? A love that could revolutionize the whole of your life and make you a completely new person. You say, well, how do I get this love? By opening your heart and receiving Christ as your Savior and Lord.

I'll close with this. I was in a house called Wilby House. It was 550 years old. They only had lights in three rooms. All the other rooms we had to take candles. When I went up the great oak staircase, the shadow used to follow me with the candle.

And once or twice I was scared. When I got into my bedroom, it was like a football pitch, so big. And the floor was like the rolling hills of Scotland. In those days they didn't know much about a straight line.

We had just two small windows. And the room was dark, damp. And can I add another word, dank. And did I freeze in that room. My bed must have been 300 years old. It had three giant mattresses all sewed up.

And you know what it is when you get into a center of the bed and you want to get out at night. I found it like getting out of a sea. Well, one night I couldn't sleep. And I could smell this dampness.

And I thought, right, I'm getting up to see what time it was. But I was feeling round for the matches who couldn't find them. And then I was feeling round for the light switch, of course they had none.

So I got out of bed in my pajamas. It must have been a pantomime. And I thought, I'll start at the back, like this. I was going round the room till I came to the curtains. And I was knocking over some antiques, I can tell you.

And then I came to these thick velvet curtains. Never have them in your bedroom. They keep the light out. And do you know I saw something that was like a spark of light. And there I was, shivering in the cold, in that dark, dank, damp bedroom, completely lost.

And there was the window. There are some here tonight and you've got dark lives. They're damp. You're lost. Beloved friends, you know it. But when I got to those curtains, I looked and said, there must be light.

And do you know what the light was saying? Let me in, Peter. Let me in. But I was staring at the little crack. Let me in. And I'll change the whole of that room. The Lord is saying, let me in, to cleanse you from sin.

And I'll change the whole of that house. Let him in. And I shall never forget it. I grabbed hold of those curtains and pulled them aside. In came the light and the morning sunshine. I nearly went. The room was transformed.

The light and the sunbeam was in. Friends, God wants you to receive his love tonight. Who's going to pull aside the curtains? Right now. At this moment. And let him in.