The Arms of Love Which Embrace the Two Eternities — Ian Paisley

Isaiah 53: The Suffering Servant

Pick up the authorized version of the scriptures you will find in front of you in the pew, and let us turn to that great portion, the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah's prophecy. Isaiah's prophecy at the chapter fifty-three.

Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we desire him.

He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Yet we did esteem him, a servant of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb.

So he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and her shall declare his generation. For he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death. Because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief, but thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.

He shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the trivial of his soul, and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the straw. Because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Amen. And God will bless the reading of his holy word, and seal it with the divine seal of his divine blessing. Let us pray. I take the promised holy ghost, the blessed power of Pentecost, to fill me to the uttermost.

I take. Thank God he undertakes for me. And the people of God sent. Amen. You may be seated. I want to speak tonight upon a subject that I have called the arms of love which embrace the two eternities.

The arms of love that embrace the two eternities. Too often the gospel can be mingled with law. And while the law of God is important and must be emphasized, the law of God is a doctrine of fear, except we know the love of God that passeth knowledge and all understanding.

Men and women, sinners by birth and by their own inward pollution, tremble and ought to tremble at the law of God. But when a sinner is embraced by the love of God, the terror ceases. The unrest ceases.

The tribulations finish. And we are in the peace of God that passeth knowledge and all understanding. There is only one verse in the Bible that talks of the great love. I am not going to tell you where you will find it.

You just read the Bible and keep reading until you find it. But there are some wonderful expressions in the Bible about God's love. As I was preparing this message, I prayed and I said, Oh, that on Sunday night some man may come in to feel the pressure of the arms of love that embrace the two eternities.

Oh, that some soul might see this love of God that passeth knowledge and all understanding. The Bible has much to say of the precious love of the Lord Jesus. It is great love. It is greater love. It is first love.

It is God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. It is commended love. It is constraining love. It is surpassing love. Passeth knowledge and all understanding. It is perfect love. And it is a love that multiplies and yet never, ever is diminished.

The Eternal and Undiminished Love of God

The love of Christ. When I speak about this great love, I speak about it as great in its agelessness. This love never had a birthday. This love never began. This love never was born. This love is as eternal as the heartbeat of God Himself.

It is part of the nature and character of God the Father. It is part of the nature and character of God the Son. It is part of the nature and character of God the Holy Ghost. God is love. We need to get that into our hearts.

Here is a love that never commenced. And it is a love that will never conclude. It is a love that never started with a beginning. And it is a love that will never end in conclusion. The first love. The first love.

He first loved. You never get to the end of the alphabet of God's love. You are still in letter A. And ten billion years from tonight, when you and I have enjoyed the wonders of heaven and the glories of the city that lies four square, you will still be in letter A.

The love of God cannot be surpassed. It is great in its agelessness. I was singing today of that wonderful day when Christ left the heavens of heaven and came down to this old sin-sodden world. And when He left, He did not leave His love behind.

He brought all His love with Him. It takes the whole love of God to save you. We are not saved by particles or pieces. As if God cut up His love and put it in pieces and said, here is a bit for Ian Paisley, here is a bit for someone else.

It is the whole love of God. Can it be broken? Can it have any dimension? It stays as it was. Can it be added to or taken from? It is the whole love of God that is ageless. And when God loved you, He loved you with all His love.

He did not hold back anything. He gave it all. The greatest all that He could give was His own blessed Son. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. He had only one only begotten Son.

And He gave all of His Son. The personification of His love. Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan. Oh, the grace that brought it down to man. Oh, the mighty God that God did not have been slandered.

Except God had given all His sinner in this meeting. God loved you with a great love. For it is ageless. He loved you with a great love because of its wonder. And its wonder is wonderful indeed. God's love is a pamphlet.

It is a cover. It is a guardianship. It is that which unites those that are lost to a Savior. When He takes them in the aegis of His love, they can never be lost. No sinner in the hand of Jesus can ever be lost.

He says, I give unto them eternal life. And they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. Well, you think you've been safe enough in His hand. But the Lord does all things doubly.

Christ goes on to say that they're not only in My hand, but they're in My Father's. This love has within it the grip of Christ's hand. But it has in it the grip of God's. What's more, He has written our names on the pamphlet.

Does God love me? I open the hand of Jesus. And I see My name in the pamphlet of His hand. And I can say in the wonder of it, My name from the palms of His hands. Eternity will not erase. Impressed in His hands it remains in marks of indelible grace.

Salvation, Election, and the Great Number Redeemed

A man told me one day that Jesus only saved us conditionally. And that we could be all lost at the end of the day. I said, you are a fool. He said, don't say that to me. But I said, that's what you are.

I'm telling you the truth. You're a fool. Do you want to know how many people Jesus saved? Go to the book of Revelation. And you'll find there a great number. Which no man can number. They can bring as many laptops as they like.

But they'll never find that number. No sir. For whom did Jesus die? He died for those that put their trust in Him. How many are there? There's a great number which no man can number. The aegis of the Savior's love brings them all in.

When I was a boy I heard the great captain from Dublin. Captain Reginald Wallace. And he came and had meetings in my dad's church. And he taught us a little hymn. I am included. I am included. When the Lord said, whosoever.

He included me. And thank God I can say in this pulpit tonight. I am included. It doesn't matter what anybody says about me. The Lord says, He's included. He's in the palm of my hand. I'll bring them to heaven.

And I'll show the angels what God did in His heart. By my grace and by the cleansing of my blood. A wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Jesus. What a wonderful Savior He is. Great love in its aegis. Great love in its aegis.

The Absoluteness of Divine Love

But it's great love in its absoluteness. God is one. It's the undivided Trinity. Because God is absolute. Then His love is one great absolute. A being is absolutely perfect. When it is incapable of the least accession or diminution.

Now such a being as God. A none but God. The sun when it shines gets nothing by shining on the moon. Or shining on the stars. The sun doesn't darken. Because it gives light every day. It is still giving its light.

It's the absolute in the heavens. The sun. And even although the whole world shares its heat. And the depths of the seas get its heat right down to the very last piece of underwater growth. They all feel the effect of the sun.

But it's undiminished. It will still burn you today as it burned people in the past. It's unchanging and unchangeable. It's God's absolute in the heavens. But when I get beyond the starry heavens and the heaven of the sun.

And I go in through the pearly gates. And I stand before the holy throne of the everlasting God. I stand in the presence of a God who is absolute. He cannot be diminished. He gives, He gives, He gives.

He loves, He loves, He loves. But there is no diminishing of His love. His heart is just as warm for me tonight as it was the day He saved me. Just as warm for me tonight as the day He sent His Son from heaven to a cruel cross to save me.

Just as warm tonight as it was when He put the Lord's back to the smiter. And His cheek to those that plucked off the hairs and withheld not His well-beloved Son from shame and spitting. The love of God is absolute.

It never diminishes. It's never added to. It's the same yesterday. It's the same today. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And it's the same forever. This is the love of God that is in this gospel. Jesus' love. Precious love.

Boundless. Like a mighty ocean rolling over sinners and washing them and making them white in the blood. It's not only great love in its agelessness and in its aegis and in its absoluteness. But it's great love in its anticipation.

Christ’s Anticipation of the Cross

Christ knew when He left heaven what He was coming for. He knew the awful and terrible pains He would have to suffer. He knew the pangs that He would have to endure. He knew the cruel bodily suffering.

The cruel sufferings of His mind. The cruel sufferings of His heart. The cruel suffering of He who was God and man. The man, Christ. There's a great preacher in Canada called T .T. Shields. He was called the Spurgeon of Canada.

And I suppose he was the nearest thing to what Spurgeon was. A tremendous preacher. I had the pleasure on occasions to preach in his pulpit. I had the pleasure of running a great campaign in his church.

Many of the converts of that campaign became foundation members of the Toronto Free Presbyterian Church. And the start of our work there. But he preached a great sermon. On that subject, is there any sorrow likened to my sorrow?

And he said this. We must discern between the sorrows that afflict the human soul. The child has but their only children's sorrows. The tears they shed are real tears. The little human heart in the bosom of a child, of a babe, breaks with pain.

But that pain can soon be alleviated and removed. It's only the sorrow of a child. But then he said there's the sorrow of a man. That's a difference. That man has gone down into the path of sorrow. And the sting of sorrow has touched the quick of his life.

And he's down there and his tears are entirely different from the tears of a child. They're deep. They press the soul. They wash like the rivers of a mighty flood over the man's inward person. And over all his living.

The sorrow of a man. But then he said, I walk up a hill called Calvary. I stand under an old rugged cross. I hear the cry of Christ. My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me? Not the sorrow. Not the sorrow of any human being.

That's the sorrow of the God man. The man Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ knew that that was before him. He knew his head would not wear a golden dowry or a diamond crown. No, his head would be crowned with cruel thorn.

He knew that his face would have every hair torn by cruel hands from off it. And still his skin was ripped. And he was marred more than any man. And his form more than the sons of men. Jesus knew that every bone would be out of joint.

He knew that his whole body would be ragged and torn and broken. He knew that he was going down into the depths of eternal damnation. To release us from the doom of the damned. And the curse of a law that is pure.

But we are broken. He knew it. He knew it all. But he didn't stop at the door of heaven. He didn't say, Father, I can't go. I'm not going. He said, I delight to do thy will. And oh, Father, I'll wear that crown though it tears my brow.

I'll carry that load though it breaks my heart. I'll go down into the depths. And I'll do it not reluctantly. I'll do it with zeal. The zeal of thy house. And he came. Praise God, he came. And although he knew it was all before him.

Darkness and despair. And misery. And rejection. And hate. And spittles. And torture. And torment. And sufferings. And bleeding. And death. At the end of him who was life. But he paid it all. Sin had left an awful stain.

He washed it white as snow. This love is great in its anticipation. But it is also great in its agony. I wish tonight I had the vocabulary. I wish tonight I had some ability to talk to you of the sufferings that Jesus endured through love for you and me upon the cross of shame.

The Agony of Christ’s Suffering

Baptism of Christ's suffering was not like a dew or a mist which only wets the surface of the ground. But it was like a great, pouring, soaking flood which descends and overcomes the man and all his life.

There was pain enough in every single part of Christ's body to spread in lesser proportions over the whole man. It was not so. Every part of Christ's body had to taste the fullness of pain. There wasn't one part of Christ's body that didn't receive the same baptism of suffering that any other part had.

His hands. His feet. His side. His brow. His head. His back. But every particle of flesh on His feet and His legs and His knees and His thighs and His bosom and His back. Every one of them was filled with suffering.

Not one part of Christ's body escaped the pain or the anguish. He suffered the depths of suffering. He suffered the heights of suffering's pain. There was nothing to mitigate or dilute that cup that He was drinking.

Every drop of that cup was filled with the wrath of God. Wrath that will burn the mortal souls who have no Christ, no blood upon them for all eternity. And when I've been ten billion years in God's glory, down in hell, the damned will still be crying.

Down in hell, Cain will still be moaning. My punishment is greater than I can bear. Eternal torment cannot be diluted. Jesus paid it all. The bitter sorrow that He bore and the crown of thorns He wore that I might live forevermore is more than tongue.

All the force, all the activity, all the stings, all the fierceness of that agony were drained, distilled and poured into every part of Christ's body, soul and spirit until He was not recognizable as a human being.

You say, how do you know that? The Bible, that if you looked in Christ, you couldn't have recognized Him. He was unrecognizable as He went down into the depths of the sorrow. All the force, all the activity of God's wrath were poured out upon Christ.

There was something far sharper than the vinegar they wanted Him to drink, far more bitter than the gall they pressed to His lips. It was that dark wrath of our punishment for sin that He had to drink to the dregs with unshaken hand, with a determination that only God could have.

And with all the almighty power that was vested in Him who was the Word of God from all eternity, He endured as seeing Him who was invisible. And at the end of the day, not with His head on His breast, but with His head lifted up, He shouted, Finished!

Finished. And all heaven took up the cry. And the orchestras of heaven played music that had never been heard before in the heights of glory. And the angels stampeded heaven with their cries and their praises.

And the Old Testament saints, whose spirits were already in heaven, burst forth in holy and hallowed praises to the One who died on the cross, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Oh, let me say this to you, that great love is seen in its agony when we mount the hill.

Christ’s Strength and Compassion at Calvary

But it is also seen in its altogetherness. I was amazed that this week you can go to Gethsemane and you can see the weakness of the Lord as He sweats His blood. You can go to Gabbatha and you can see the woefulness of Christ giving His back to the smiter and His cheek to those that pluck off the heirs.

But when you go to Calvary, you will be amazed at the wonder of His strength. As they kneeled them to the cross, He didn't cry out of the pain. He cried out for the salvation of the men who did that dirty deed.

Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. And then He turned and looked upon His mother. And He knew that the home would now be broken up. She would need someone to help her. And He looked down at John, the youngest of the disciples, who was bound to live out his mother's age.

And He said, I'll put her into the care of John. And He said to His mother, behold thy son. And to John, behold thy mother. He never said, I'm in agony. John, I'm in bitter agony. No, there was an all togetherness about Christ.

When He thought not of Himself and His pains. He thought upon you and me as He died on Calvary. And there was beside Him a thief. And He turned to the thief. And He had time to say, today thou shalt be with me in paradise.

Oh, the wonder of it, that He was suffering such agony. But He had time for sinners. I'm glad there's still time for sinners. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish.

The Accomplishment of the Cross

But have everlasting life. Well, if this love was great in its agelessness. And in its ageus. In its absoluteness. In its anticipation. In its agony. And in its all togetherness. It was great love in its accomplishment.

Who can speak of what Christ accomplished on the cross? How few can say at death that they have finished their work. Indeed, no one in human nature could ever say what Jesus said. Could cry, it is finished.

The emblem of every life may well be in one aspect of it. A broken pillar. But Christ's life was no broken pillar. It was a whole monument to the fact that He had done all that God wanted Him to do. His life He gave as a ransom for the many.

And after He endured every pain. And drunk every drop of judgment. And into the depths of the deepest hell. He came away rejoicing. Saved them from going down to the pit. For I have found the ransom. William Williams, the great Presbyterian hymn writer in Wales wrote the words.

The enormous load of human guilt was on my Savior laid. With woes as with a garment. He for sinners was arrayed. And in the horrid pangs of death. He wept. He prayed for me. Loved and embraced my guilty soul.

When kneeled to Calvary's tree. Oh love amazing. Love beyond the reach of human tongue. Love which shall be the subject of the everlasting. Dear sinner. Listen to the cross. Hide your sins in the ocean of His blood.

And leave this house today. Ready to live for Him. Ready to die for Him. And never ready to be with Him in Heaven forevermore. May it be so for Jesus sake. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Father we thank Thee for help given.

To preach about Thy love. Our words are stammering words. There's no words in the vocabulary of any language. That could describe what Thou did suffer for us sinners. But You did suffer. I thank You Lord Jesus.

This night. For dying for me. And I pray that those in this meeting. Who do not know Thee. May this night turn. And seek the Lord while He may be found. And call upon Him. While He is near. May it be so for Jesus sake.

And everybody say. Amen.