Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, how this truth cuts against all self-reliance and drives us to the feet of Jesus. You are not the good man that you think you are, you are stained with sin from head to foot, and unless you are washed in the Divinely-provided bath, even in the atoning blood of Jesus, you will perish in your sin. There is not, in unrenewed human nature, a place where you could put the point of a pin where it is not defiled with sin! It is in our entire system, we have been lying in it until we are steeped through and through with it.
Yet behold what manner of love is revealed in this, that God should give His only Son to us. God commends His love to us by this unspeakable Gift. He has given us good hope. The hope of immortality for our souls and of resurrection for our bodies, for when Christ shall come, we, also, that sleep in Jesus, shall come with Him. A fanatic's hope will pass away with the vapors which produced it, but the hope of the true Believer is good because it is founded in Truth and in Divine Grace.
You ask that all work done in these next days might reflect His Agape Love, and well you might, for Christ, in the chariot of His Love, visits the sick souls He has come to heal. But these publicans and sinners are, according to your way of speaking, to be regarded as sick, where should the Great Physician be but with those who need to be healed? Christ, in associating with sinners, did not at all condone their sin. Sin is an hereditary disease, we are born with a tendency towards it, no, we are born in it. The taint is in our blood, the very center of our being feels the infection. What form of disease did He not meet with? He has had extraordinary complications of strange diseases to deal with but He has known exactly, in one moment, with one glance of His eyes, how to treat the patient. He is the only universal doctor at home in every case.
You plead for wisdom, rapport, favor, and that nothing be forgotten. But remember, the most putrid poisonous air that ever blew from a fever hospital never had such foulness in it as dwells in sin. Pest-houses and lazar-houses are clean and safe compared with the haunts of vice. Yet He deals with us in a way of Grace, for it is said, He has given us, it is altogether of His free love, through Grace, or absolute favor. The consolations of the Lord are the gifts of mercy and love. He takes the big hammer of His Omnipotence and brings it down on the anvil of His wisdom and worlds fly like sparks all over the sky when He is at that work! And He thinks nothing of it. But He rests in His love and rejoices over His people with singing when He is at work for their salvation.
For the grieving family, how sweet to hear the Lord say, "In love I correct you your gold to refine; To make you, at length, in My likeness to shine." Beloved, we are willing to take the Divine love with every possible drawback that can be concerned, for the love of our Father is a weight of Glory, and all the sorrows of time are but light afflictions and they last but for a moment. The description in the Song does not say that the chariot is plated with love on the outside, but it is paved with love within, in the midst of it. Have not even your trials been sent in love? Blind Unbelief called it severity. Look down and see how all the attributes of God are engaged for you, and they are all in league with Love.
You lift up your adult children, your daughter, your son, asking healing and that they might see themselves as God sees them. You will never come to Christ as long as you are in love with sin. And you are so much in love with sin that you never will come at all except Omnipotent Grace shall draw you. And so says our Lord Jesus Christ, "No man can come to Me, except the Father who sent Me draws him." He does this in order that Christ may be lifted up and that we may be drawn to Him. God would have His people not only do what is righteous, but what is generous, and act not only justly, but kindly to all with whom they come in contact.
You ask deliverance from evil, a hedge of protection, and close doors that lead to harm. I am glad that it is so with you and I pray that it may be so with all who hear. My countenance is dark with anger against your iniquities, but still fear not, for my wrath against your sin is but a form of My love to you. Evidently God deals with His own people in a way of Grace, He has given us everlasting consolation and good hope. This is true charity, that holy love which is the choicest of the Graces of God. We love because He first loved us.
Do not be afraid of being too happy in the Lord, or of being too sure of His salvation, or of having too much assurance. Dread not the excitements which come from fellowship with Christ. Let us show our love by joying in Him as He joys in us. Oh, for Grace to appropriate a whole Christ and all the love, the Grace, the Glory that is laid up in Him. Jesus dwells in love. Love brought Him down from Heaven to earth. The inter-communion is complete, the enjoyment is for both. To make our Lord Jesus happy, we must also be happy.