SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 71, 2 July 1910, Page 9

SUNDAY READING.

THE SUPREME MESSAGE OF REVELATION. -

"God is Love."—l. John IV., 10,

(By Rev. John Laird, New Plymouth)

This is an arresting assertion about God. Revelation was progressive. The vision that men saw of God when He revealed Himself to prophets and patriarchs was a vision of His greatness and glory. His .glory was often manifested in His goodness to men. but it is only in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ that we see Him fully and know with assurance that "God is Love." This is ( a short sentence, but two of its three words are as vast and fathomless as eternity, "God" and "Love.'' Cod's love passeth all understanding. The prisoner wrote on the wall of his cell:

"Were all this world of parchment made, Did ink with ocean fill, Were every man a.scribe by trade And every stick a quill, To write the love of God above Would drain that ocean dry; Nor would the world contain the whole Those lines from earth to sky.

This text is a definition of God. But what is love? It cannot be defined; we only know a little of what it is; hence this definition of God leaves Him still in the region of the unknown. While we cannot by searching find out what love is, we know a little about it. Let us test this assertion of "God is love" by our knowledge of love.

LOVE MANIFESTS ITS PRESENCE,

It is something we cannot see, 'but nevertheless it makes its existence known by acts peculiar to itself. Love provides, and we see it a work every day in human lives. It moves the manufacturer's machinery, ploughs the soil, builds houses, makes laws, and is the mainspring of a thousand things that provide for the needs of humanity. And is not God the great Provider? Does He not open His hand and satisfy the need of every living thing? If love manifests itself by providing, then "God is love."

Love also manifests itself by its willingness to suffer on behalf of the object loved—to suffer even shame and pain. I know a man in Londonderry whose son committed a crime that would have blighted his life if it became known. To hide his son's sin that man allowed the act to <be attributed to liim. He suffered the pain, the shame and the disgrace that naturally attached itself to such a deed for the sake of his son, whom he loved. Life is full of examples of the suffering of hearts in sympathy with others. But—

There is no place where earth's sorrows Are more felt than up in heaven.

Love will not only suffer; it will make sacrifice. If the love is deep and real, it will give up everything to help. It will go to the battlefield, to the mission field, to the stake. It has done so again and again. But every sacrifice made by men dwarfs into insignificance before the great fact, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten so to die for us men and our salvation.'' Love will not even hesitate to die. David wailed out in despair, "0 Absolom, my son Absolom, would to God I IUJ died for thee." God did not only express his grief and sorrow over sinning and wayward man in words, but in the great deed of the cross. John the apostle exclaims as he gazes on that cross with all its shame and woe, "Behold what love the Father hath bestowed upon us." If that sross has one message for mankind it is, "God is love."

LOVE FORGIVES.

"No man can forgive sins but God only," is true in quite another sense to that .meant by those who first uttered it. There is nothing more divine than genuine forgiveness. Love forgives and covers a multitude of sins. God's revelation of Himself/in Christ was made that "we might have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins, through Jesus Christ." God says:'"l even I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions and will remember no more thy sins."

"The pardon of sin is the crown of His glory." The prodigal comes home to find he is loved still. If to provide, to suffer, to sacrifice, to die, and to forgive indicate and prove the existence of love, then verily it is proved in deeds of grace. "God is love."

LOVE IS XOT BLIND. Love is full of purpose. The manifestation in God's love is the great magnet by which He would draw men from sin to righteousness. The Creator loving the creature is not a drama to excite wonder and admiration, • In this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved Cod, but that He loved us, and sent His' Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. It is to give "life" and '-pardon." God's love has'appeared to make us loving. He makes us the recipients of His love that He may shed abroad, in kind deeds and loving .gracious words, His love in our hearts. There is no mood in which man is so like the devil as when his heart is full of hate and spite. The proof of the reality of our Christianity lies in the exercise of a Christ-like love. "If a man say I love God and hateth his brother, he is a liar, for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen?"

THREE INFERENCES. It is easy to prove that God is love. It has been proved without the shadow of a doubt at the kill of Calvary. If it is true that "God is love." there are three things that we are able to infer:

(1) That it is not known that "God is love," that it has not really ''dawned" on the careless and unthinking soul. Dr. Dale tells us that once he was studying the fact of the resurrection, and, while doing so, it came home to him with such force that Christ was alive that he rose from his study table and paced his room saying to himself, "Christ is really risen." John says in this verse, "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us." If men knew and believed that "God is love," they would not refuse His love and despise His grace. (2) We must also infer man's inexcusableness if he refuses to be moved toward righteousness and God. The God who says, "Repent and come to me," is indefinable goodness, love. In the light of the love and grace of the Cross of Calvary, the sinner is without excuse if he continue in sin.

(3) We must also . infer the great power of sin. What keeps man from '.iod and holiness? Sin. That sin may not exist and show itself on the surface. But be it pride, self-righteousness, open or secret sin, the enemy in the citadel that refuses to surrender to God's claim and love is strong and of great power. It resists and refuses to come to love which many waters could not quench, to love which "passeth knowledge."