THE history of God's ways with the men of His choice from the beginning has been a record of determined love in the midst of determined opposition, and one special charm in the story is found in the fact that the very opposition itself has been made to serve, and serve effectually, the ends of the love it opposed. Even in the instruments chosen for the direct accomplishment of these ends we see striking exhibitions of the same principle.
For example: It was Jacob's love to Joseph that was expressed in that "coat of many colors"; and it was the determined opposition of the rest of his sons that was eventually the means of placing Joseph where, through him, deliverance from famine might come to them as God's great mercy to the whole family.
Again. In the child Moses we see that the one who was himself the offspring of determined love is the one chosen of God to be the deliverer of His people. His mother's affection held him back from the hand of the destroyer to the very extremity of her power; and from that point God's determined love takes the matter into its own hands, and makes Pharaoh's obstinate defiance serve and further His own settled purpose in the complete deliverance of His people when the due time of past promises should be reached (Gen. 15:1313And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; (Genesis 15:13); Exod. 12:4141And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:41)). "Even the selfsame day it came to pass.”
But it is not until we come to the cross that we see the full triumph of all-conquering love over man's determined opposition. Both were clearly in evidence all through the blessed One's history here below. But it was the cross that crowned all. It was there that the direst opposition was seen to be only working out love's choicest, brightest ends. As another has strikingly expressed it: "Good and evil in all their forms and extremes met there, for the triumph of good in once suffering the evil, and that good might have its full sway." The wicked hands that crucified and slew the sent One of the Father were only accomplishing that which the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:2323Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: (Acts 2:23)) had purposed from eternity.
“Love that no tongue can teach,
Love that no thought can reach,
No love like His.
God is its blessed source,
Death ne'er can stop its course,
Nothing can stay its force:
Matchless it is.”
Then when the Holy Ghost came and had so filled Stephen that his face shone like an angel's, man's bitterest opposition only made it more manifest that the determined love in the one they were battering to death was only the unquenchable love of Jesus in one of His own. Love will serve to the end. Stephen's prayer for his murderers was quickly followed by a direct and most glorious answer in the conversion of their ringleader, Saul of Tarsus. The personal interference of the Head in Glory in bringing this about without any direct instrumentality was an additional witness of the same determined love. When "Behold, he prayeth," was true of Saul, the prayer of Stephen had its answer. Both were now praying to the same Lord. Love had triumphed.
If anything further was needed for the confirmation of the same blessed truth, the whole life and labor of the great apostle of the Gentiles would abundantly supply it. What desperate hostility his devoted love encountered, yet what determined purpose to serve in responsive love to Christ, even to being poured out in death for the objects of his affection (Phil. 2:1717Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all. (Philippians 2:17)).
Love is triumphant—must be triumphant. Hear the language of one who was filled with it: “We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8). GEO. C.
The Truth Confessed.—When a poor sinner can say to God: "The Lord Jesus Christ loved Thee with perfect love, but I—I have had no love to Thee whatsoever; and Thou hast ever found Thy delight in Christ Jesus, and I have found delight in every one and in everything except in Him!" it is an awful reality to which he confesses. But let him not keep back the confession; it is truth, and truth in the inward parts God will not turn away from. 'Tis a confession, too, which supposes self to be in ruins; God to be God, and the Father of an only-begotten Son, Who is a Savior of the lost, and a Giver of eternal life and of the Spirit to those that come to God through Him. G. V. W.