SOME years since, a man in the south of Scotland told me that before he was converted he always fancied God was frowning upon him.
Now this wicked thought about God is very general amongst the fallen children of Adam, and believing that truth is sufficient to meet all error (just as light dispels darkness), I desire to draw your earnest attention to the inspired Word, wherein we shall find the true character of God revealed.
Turn to 1 John 4:88He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. (1 John 4:8), and let me ask you, dear reader, not only to read, but to mark, learn, and inwardly digest those three most precious words, “God is love.” Yes, “God is (not was) love.” How precious!
“His nature and His name are love.”
Now, does it appear from this that He is “frowning,” or, as “the wicked servant” imagined in Luke 19:2121For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. (Luke 19:21), that He is “an austere man”? Far be the thought, for “God is rich in mercy” and “great in love” (Eph. 2:44But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, (Ephesians 2:4)).
Well, this point having been settled, a question of much moment presents itself. Who are the objects of this great love? Let the Scriptures answer. “God so loved the world” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)). Yes, “the world;” which embraces the Gentiles as well as the Jews―takes in all and leaves out none. Then what about my reader? Oh, friend! appropriate this love of God by taking your stand on the word “world.”
“God in mercy sent His Son
To a world by sin undone;
Jesus Christ was crucified,
‘Twas for sinners Jesus died.”
But then, again, whilst it is blessedly and undeniably true that “God is love,” and that His heart is towards sinners (the gift of the Son of His love being the fullest expression of this), it is well to get deep down into the soul the fact that there is another side of God’s nature or character, and one that is too commonly lost sight of, namely, “God is light.” Yes. “He is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look upon iniquity.” All sin is perfectly abhorrent to Him. When Adam and Eve committed ONE sin, He could not pass it over, and so drove them out of His earthly paradise; and concerning His heavenly home, it says, “There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie” (Rev. 21:2727And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. (Revelation 21:27)). Well, then, might the seraphim veil their faces and cry, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;” and well might Isaiah say, “Woe is me, for I am undone,” when he saw in a vision the Lord, and what was going on in His holy presence; and well might my dear reader, if an unforgiven sinner, bow down before his God in true repentance about the many sins he has committed against Him. For, do not forget, “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all;” and if you refuse to have to do with Him now, whilst on His “throne of grace,” you must face Him when He steps on to the “great white throne” of judgment, and then, appalling thought! be “cast into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:1515And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:15)).
I do pray you, dear fellow-traveler to eternity, “Be ye reconciled to God;” now, at once, without a moment’s delay. Christ, whom He gave in the love of His heart, has done a work (“it is finished”), which has met all the claims of his nature and holiness. Sin has been dealt with, Christ’s blood shed, the vail rent which shut God in (and man out), and now He is revealed as “the Savior-God,” “a just God and a Saviour,” able to be “just, and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus.”
Dear reader, do you know “the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent”? If not, I do beseech you, “Acquaint Now thyself with him, and be at peace, and thereby good shall come unto thee.”
H. T.