Gooding, David: Love is from God

The first epistle by John in chapter four, beginning to read in verse seven. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. Everyone that loveth is begotten of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God. For God is love. Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No man hath beheld God at any time. If we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we abide in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his spirit. We have beheld and bear witness that the Father hath sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in God. We know and have believed the love which God hath in us. God is love, and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him. Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, even so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear. Because fear hath punishment. And he that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. 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, cannot love God whom he hath not seen. This commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God, love his brother also. The Lord himself interprets his holy word to us. The great trinity of virtues, faith, hope, and love, find their place in the epistles of John, no less than in the letters written by his fellow apostles. In chapter five of his first letter, he reminds us that this is the victory that hath overcome the world, our faith. In chapter three of this same letter, he tells us that he that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is poor. And here in this passage we read that when love has been perfected with us, it gives us confidence in the day of judgment and casts out all fear. So then these glorious activities, faith, hope, and love between them cover our Christian experience. Faith, says John, looks towards the past. The battle has been won. We have overcome the world. What is the victory that hath overcome the world? This it is, even our faith. And as we begun, so we continue. This is the victory that constantly overcomes the world. For he that overcomes the world is he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God. And then, as to our present conduct, says chapter three, hope plays its mighty part. For he that hath this hope in him, one day being like the Savior, will be motivated here and now to purify his life. So that just as faith is not an intellectual exercise merely, but true faith, a faith that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God, is a tremendous power that brings with it the power to overcome the world. So hope is not merely a facility at doing prophetical crossword puzzles, sorting out the timetables that relate to the latter days. But hope too is a mighty practical power that motivates the believer to purify his life here and now. Then comes love. Love, says John, when it is perfected with us, gives us confidence at the last, in view of the day of judgment. It casts out fear and leaves us without any dread or torment. The battle's behind us, the training done, and now the future before us and the great judgment that there awaits, says John. Love plays its part preeminently there. It casts out all fear and gives us confidence in the day of judgment. Somebody will say that, Mr. Preacher, that is a very nice and neat arrangement, faith, hope, and charity, that you have overlooked one thing, that the faith that overcomes the world is our faith, and the hope that leads us to purify our lives is our hope. But surely, Mr. Preacher, the love that gives us confidence in the day of judgment is not our love, but God's love. In fact, this is going to be the burden of the paragraph that we have read and are to study this evening, that love really is of God. And whether it be God's love in the first place, first loving us, or whether it is the love that we subsequently show to others because he first loved us, all love is of God. And so much is it true that all love is of God, that the Apostle John can say that everybody that loveth is born of God, has the very nature of God. The love that you see going out from that believer's heart or that believer's heart is, in fact, the love of God himself that has been channeled through that person's heart because that person has been born of God and has received his spirit. And so we shall find in this ensuing paragraph that our love for one another, and God's love for us, and our love back to God, these are in fact, all of them as to their source from God. All of them put together are included in that phrase, herein is love perfected with us, that we might have confidence in the day of judgment. For this paragraph is going to argue this way, that if we would lay hold upon the love of God, and let it so grip our souls that it excludes all fear and torment, so that it is at last perfected and allowed its free force through all our being. The way to that experience is by our being willing to practice that love and show that love to other people. For in the end, the mighty love of God to us will never fully dawn on our souls until we have been prepared to show that love to others and come to know by practical experience what it means to love. And hence John is urging us in this passage to a practical love the one of the other. Let us love one another, he says, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is begotten of God and knoweth God. The converse is true, that because God is love, he that loveth not, knoweth not God. For God is love. But then at the beginning of our lesson, perhaps we had better inquire of John the Apostle this way and say, John, we understand then our, our, our task is that we are to love one another, but John, what exactly do you mean by love? For instance, um, we may love everybody, but John, this is a sinful world, and sometimes people are sinful, and sometimes people are difficult. What will it mean to love one another? Will it mean that I have to be nice and pleasant and agreeable, whatever people do or whatever they say? Surely sometimes, John, I shall have to be severe, and I shall have to denounce, and I shall have to disagree when my fellow sins. What do you mean exactly, John, by saying we have to love one another? And if we ask John in that fashion, John will turn around and say, well, first of all, before we go further with the lesson of loving one another, let us think what love really means and what love really is. And of course, we shall see this when we first of all look to God's love of us. So now a few moments, says John, and, and two descriptions of love. Herein was the love of God manifested in us. Verse nine of chapter four. And herein is love, verse ten of chapter four. And were we to read those verses very quickly and superficially, we might get the impression that they are just repeating one another. For the first one says, herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. And the second one seems to say something very similar, for it says, herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Yet I'm going to ask you to notice these verses in great detail, for they are not mere repetition. They are in fact saying two quite different things. First of all, says John, I want you to see the manifestation of God's love. I want you to see God's love in action, for the easiest way to begin when you think of love is not to think about the theory, but to see it in actual practice. Here it was manifested the love of God. And then, says John, when we spent some time looking at the actual working and manifestation of God's love, then we can go behind the scenes and think about the principles involved and the cost involved in that love. And in both of these, the manifestation and the very essence of love, we shall be learning what real love is, and what it will mean for us to love one another. So then the manifestation of God's love first. And I like it that way. Glad John didn't say first herein is love, and only secondly herein was the love of God manifest, because it is easier, isn't it, to grasp what love is if we can see it first in a, in an actual example. Here is, for instance, a nine-year-old little fellow, and he's been pleading and plaguing his father to buy him a bicycle for Christmas. But, uh, work has been short, and, uh, money is a bit scarce. And what nine-year-old doesn't know is that there's a bill for the gas up there unpaid, and another bill for the coal unpaid. And, uh, the money that's required for the bicycle i- i- is a bit short. It's then difficult enough to get that over across to a nine-year-old, isn't it? So father and mother knock their heads together, and by dint of going without a new suit or something or other, and scraping here and gathering there, when Larry comes down on Christmas morning, there is a brand new bicycle awaiting the lad. And the boy sees it. And now as he gives his mother a big hug and his father a big hug, he- he- he's got the point that they love him because he can actually see something in action. Give that boy another twenty years, maybe, or thirty, and he's got a nipper or two of his own. And when it comes around Christmas time and the money is a bit short with him, he'll look back and say, ah, old daddy wasn't so bad after all, you know, and mum, now I look back, they couldn't have had much through their fingers in those early days, and yet, you know, they, when they were short, they bought me a bike. And now the boy will begin to see something behind the scenes, the deliberations that went on, the problems that were involved in loving. But you see, it had to be first, didn't it, the manifestation, and then behind the scene to the principle. And so the word of God, herein first was the love of God manifested. How so? Well, the herein that God hath sent his only begotten son into the world. God hath sent him into the world. I like that word, hath sent. Perhaps you will think I'm, I'm cutting the proverbial score when I point out to you that it's slightly different from what it says in verse ten. In verse ten, it just says he sent him, but accurately translated in verse nine, it is he hath sent him. And the force of that particular tense of the verb that John uses, uh, we may perhaps gather from what Pilate said. He used this same tense of a verb when he said to the Jews, what I have written, I have written. He meant that what he had done was done and wasn't going to be altered. What he had written was written and wasn't going to be changed. And so says John, herein is God's love manifested, not in a passing incident, not in a something that happened once, but that was a long time ago, and since then God has been acting somewhat differently, but it's been manifested in an act, the significance of which is permanent. He has sent his son. It is a gift that God calculatingly gave and will never withdraw. He has sent his son into the world. He has sent his son. Yes, he didn't merely sit in heaven and talk to us about love. He didn't merely sit upon his throne and tell us he loved us. But he put that love into action, and he has sent his son. We notice those extra three words. He has sent his son into the world. Into the world. Love that keeps at a distance isn't love, is it? Love wants always to come as near as possible. Love cannot survive, so to speak, without fellowship. Herein then was love shown that God has sent his son into the world, and as far into the world as he could possibly send him. I think this is a marvelous thing. It doesn't say herein is love that Christ came and preached some wonderful sermons. It says herein has the love of God been manifest that he's sent him into the world. He had come a long way by the time he was born, flesh and blood. Who shall measure the distance that he overstepped when he who was God absolute stepped over that immeasurable distance and became flesh and tabernacled among men. But then he went further into the world than that. Not only was he made like unto his brethren, but he went right into the world, didn't he? Till the pub- till the Pharisees and the scribes thought he'd gone too far into the world. They said, well, he's gone to be a guest with a man that is a publican and a sinner. They said this man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. All right, you know, to stand in a pulpit and preach to sinners. But do you think it's quite the right thing to do to go into the homes of sinners? Do you think it's quite the right thing to do, they said, to go and there publicly attend a banquet with sinners? And do you think it's the right thing to do to have sinners coming, crowding around him at his table? Oh, how little those Pharisee men understood the heart of God. Herein was the love of God manifested in actual living, that he sent his son as near men and as near all men as he could possibly get. He sent him into the world, but he hath sent his only begotten son into the world. There is point in the word, because if you notice in the next verse, John says merely he, uh, sent his son. But in this first verse here, verse nine, he says he hath sent his only begotten son. And of course, there isn't one word that's wasted in Holy Scripture. Why say only begotten son? Well, we must put two things together to understand it. He has sent his only begotten son. What for? That we might live through him. That's why. In the next verse, John is going to say that he sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. But in this verse, when it's a question that we might live through him, John says he sent his only begotten son that we might live through him. The relations that subsist between the persons of the Godhead are mysterious indeed and go beyond our understanding. Full many a heresy there has been that has grown up from minds that know not where to stop their critical thinking and learn to worship. Men that have tried to explain the Godhead, have not realized that the Godhead is so far beyond our understanding and description that we cannot possibly reduce it to our formulae, but must learn to believe what we are told and believe into worship. And yet what we are told is told us for our reverent study. The Son of God is described as the only begotten of the Father. Only begotten. You may choose to believe that that word only begotten means nothing more than only. For my part, I think there is something deeper involved, that the ties that tie the members of the Godhead together are ties of life. Ties of life. Of one life with the Father. God has sent us someone that was his very vital son, his only begotten son. How wonderful this is. How should we measure the love of God for us? Ah, says somebody, if God gave me a little bit more cash and life were easier, then I could think that God loved me. So? I then you'd be mightily pleased if one of these days God gave you a whole planet, wouldn't you? Mars, for instance. How would you like to have Mars? Or perhaps Pluto? Or a constellation or two? Would that be a bit too much? Or a whole spiral nebula, maybe? For God's got millions of those, apparently, knocking around the place. Those we can see and those we can't. Their metallic wealth going into billions compared with our gold of this tiny little smudge of a world. Would you be impressed by the love of God if he gave you a whole planet to yourself? And again, God could give you a whole spiral nebula and not miss it, so to speak. He's got plenty of them. When he thought to make you an expression of his love, he, he gave you nothing so cheap as a spiral nebula with all its millions of stars. He gave you something that was utterly unique. He gave his only son. And I say again, his only begotten son. It was his very vitals being given you. What for? That we might live through him. Don't you see the point? It was God giving us the very vitals of his life that we might have that life and share it with God. I remember once taking a journey from Birmingham to Warrington in England. I was driving my sister-in-law and two of her children to see her sister and little nephews and nees- nieces in Warrington, and we started out. And four-year-old in the car had been equipped with a box of sweets to give to her opposite number when she arrived the other end. Well, for the first mile or two, the box of sweets was quite all right. After about the third mile, the box of sweets began to be a temptation. Get us ten miles on the road, and the temptation was irresistible, and one sweet had disappeared. By the time we got to Warrington, the whole lot had disappeared. Do you see? Asking a four-year-old to part with a box of sweets. I mean, sweets. The whole world revolves around sweets almost at that age, doesn't it? What? Ah yes. And God had one son. It wasn't merely that he was unique, but when God gave him, it was like tearing himself asunder. That we might live. It was the highest and biggest thing that God do, could do, by way of being a demonstration that he loved. Ah, but we have seen the demonstration. And happy are we if we can say in the words that John presently uses, we have seen it. And though it seems far too good to be true, we have dared believe it in all its implications. But now, says John, if you have seen the object lesson and the demonstration, come a bit further. There's more to it than this. Come behind the scenes a moment. Come see what it cost. Come see all the thoughts and the planning and the problems that were in the way of God's love. For though the demonstration be magnificent, the cost was terrible. And herein is love. Herein you will find the abiding feature and principle of love that is behind every expression of God's love, and that is this: herein is love, not that we love God. You mistake it if you think that God gave his son because there was something in us that drew out God. We did not love God. It was not because we were holy. It is not because we are holy, and it never will be because we are holy. That God loves us. But he loves as he always loves, in this absolute sense he loves. Not because we love God. Utterly causeless. And therefore utterly permanent and eternal. Herein is love, not that we loved, but that he loved. But though there was no cause in me by way of love to God to bring out God's love to me, there were on the other side many obstacles to stop that love coming out to me. For John says that when his son came, he came to be the propitiation for our sins. And the word he uses is carefully chosen and full of significance. Propitiation perhaps is one of the hardest New Testament words to get a hold of. We had best think of it perhaps and illustrate it to our minds by going back to the Old Testament and to the wonderful ceremonies that clustered around the Day of Atonement. Every day during the year when people sinned, they could bring their sacrifices for sin, their sin offerings. The Day of Atonement was a bit different. Says God, you see now I'm holding this Day of Atonement because all the year through the shortcomings, the sins of my people have, so to speak, been defiling my tabernacle. When I look at their sins, then by rights of the Lord, I oughtn't to stay among them. For I am a holy God who cannot tolerate the presence of sin. And the idea of remaining among and being in contact with a people that is constantly sinful, this is abhorrent to God. Something about which his own holy character rebels. It isn't, my brother, that God has a lot of laws nailed up on the wall of heaven, so that when the day begins, he has a look at us and says, now I wonder, now there's a sister there, she, um, she's been a little bit proud and envious. Now, may I, according to the law, have anything to do with her? Of course not. There aren't any laws written up on the walls of heaven. The laws of the Bible are merely an out-speaking of what God is and what God feels. And when I'm proud, and when I'm envious, and when I want to appear better than somebody else, the very heart of God boils in anger against it. He doesn't have to tie to the anger. Sin is absolutely abhorrent. And how could he stay among those Israelites? The answer is that year by year, blood was shed and brought into the very throne of God and sprinkled on that mercy seat, that place of propitiation. And there, says God, ah, between that mercy seat, between the cherubim, where the blood is shed, there I will meet with you. That blood will cleanse the tabernacle that remaineth among you in all your defilement. Day in and day out and night in and night out, the presence of that blood on the mercy seat made it possible for God to stay there. When old Simeon ben Levi sinned out there in the remotest part of the tent, and had the ghostliest notion that the thing he'd done was sin, and certainly hadn't repented yet. Yet God could remain among those people because of that blood on that propitiatory seat. As God here in his love, not only that we didn't love God, but that God loved us and then contemplated our sin. And every thought of our sin made God's heart boil out in anger against sin. And yet, and yet, he found a way round it. He found a way, shall I say, of overcoming the obstacle. He sent his son a propitiation for our sins. To allow us the sinners and God to meet. To allow God to continue with us, his erring saints. You know, I think that's marvelous about God. We have a habit which our Lord Jesus said was typical of the Gentiles, of loving those that love us. And, uh, given two invitations in our morning post to go to coffee, one with Mrs. Smith, whom we like ever so much because Mrs. Smith is a charming person. She holds more or less the same views as we do and has the same tastes as we do, so that morning coffee with Mrs. Smith will be a very pleasurable occasion. And the other invitation from Mrs. Jones, and you must know we don't like Mrs. Jones because, you know, she holds different views from what we hold and is always saying them and treading on our corns. And she likes different kind of music, and she will serve up bands we don't like and do a lot of other things we don't like. Given two invitations, you know, we, we, we find it easier to go to Mrs. Smith, don't we, than with the one we like. Yeah. But herein is love. When our sins made it terribly difficult for God to come anywhere near, his love found a way of coming near. He sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Ah, now I begin to see. When it says that he sent his son into the world, and turns our mind to our Lord going amongst the sinners and the publicans and the harlots and sitting with them at coffee. And I hear the Pharisees saying, look how ungodly he's being, mixing with those wicked people. That's, that's putting a premium on sin that will encourage them to sin. Now I begin to see how God's heart was feeling behind the scene. You know what it cost him to sit side by side with Zacchaeus and the sinners? Every fiber in his being raged at the thought of sin. And at last, by what happened on the cross, God determined to come near the sinner. Though they beat his son upon the face and clawed the hair from his cheeks and stripped him in skirts, they said, God, I want to come near the sinner. And the blood that stains the mercy seat today, my brother, was cudgelled out of God's son, and heared by the hands of a simple man. Hearing is love. God so loved that he found a way of being near them, cost what it might. But that, says John, was just by way of explanation. For the lesson of this paragraph is this, brethren, if God so loved us. We ought to love one another. For now we begin to see what love means. It's not some sugary sentiment. It certainly isn't winking at sin or condoning sin. But it is a willingness to accept the other man. And his sinfulness and his awkwardness and his difficulty and twisted character cuts and bruise and hurts. Even yet, said God, do you not remember what it hurt me and how it cut me and how it wounded me to get near you and to receive you and to hold you and to keep you and to guarantee that you will never be cast out? This is what it means to love. Accepting the other man as he is. And says the apostle, this love of God is such a wonderful thing. Whereas right from the start of our Christian experience, we gain some glimmerings of it, yet it is a matter that we shall constantly be pursuing and only gradually increasing in our getting to know. And there will be many processes which God will use that love with us might be perfected. It doesn't mean, of course, that God doesn't love us already perfectly, but it does mean that whereas God loves us limitlessly, we don't always appreciate God's love or understand it or see it. There come times, do there not, when sometimes we still doubt God's love? When we find it hard to reconcile God's love with our circumstances. There come times with believers when they doubt whether God has really accepted them. And sometimes when we blotted our copy books, more than we had ever expected to blot them. We wonder whether at last this has taken God by surprise and diminished some of his love. Then, says the apostle, let us learn to give ourselves to those exercises which, day by day, will make it easier for us to comprehend God's love. How shall we do it? The simple Simple answer. answer is by learning, by trying to love one another. You say, what's that got to do with it? Well, you see, in the first place, all love is of God, but love is an activity. Love isn't merely a state, a nice sort of a feeling. Love is an activity. And the best way of coming to find out what electricity is and does is for the wire to let the electricity come through and make a light the other end, isn't it? And because all love is of God, if you will know God's love in its fullest, then be a sort of a wire, says John, and let the current of God's love come through you. For love is of God, and everyone that loveth is begotten of God. Hereby shall we know that he is in us and we in him. How? By his spirit that dwelleth in us. That's how. I would say, well, how am I going to know that his spirit is in me? Well, we should know it first of all because God says so. But when we believe we were sealed with his Holy Spirit, and we take it as a fact of history, not a matter of feeling, but as a fact of history, that God gave us his Holy Spirit when we believed. There's another way of knowing, and that is by experiencing the power and impulse of that holy personality who resides within us. As he activates us to love other folks. Do you see that the Holy Spirit inside of me will always be activating me to love people. If I clench tight my little neuroses and the hardness of my heart, and relish the spite of my tongue and the sarcasm of my own spirit, how shall I know God? And how shall I really come to enjoy and understand what loving is? There are some people that have the misfortune of being what is technically called tone deaf. You could set old Tchaikovsky himself down at the piano and Yehudi Menuhin with a violin and get them to play the most heavenly music, and that wouldn't mean a thing to the poor person concerned. He's tone deaf. And if he happens to stand beside you in the meeting singing a hymn, it'll be a great struggle for you too to keep the note because he can't. Poor fellow can't help that. Because he'll never understand all those raptures that Tchaikovsky went into and other people go into when they listen to Tchaikovsky because, well, he's not, he just can't understand the, the sort of music doesn't filter through him. And if we're going to understand God's love, we shall see it in action. We shall find it written in a book. But there's another way, says John, and that's by letting the love of that Holy Spirit come through me to somebody else. So God will be able to perfect his love in me. When they've, um, you know, as sometimes they can do, when they've been a little thoughtless, and you've done your best and they haven't acknowledged it, and rather they've stamped on your toes a little bit, and uh, you feel like giving up and, or at least giving them a part of your mind, and you don't, and you keep on going to the meeting. You will then learn what it meant for Christ to keep on living in our world. And you will know what it meant for God to give his son to the car. And you'll say, now I see what it meant for God to love me. And the fact that he loved me in spite of my unloveliness. Make me understand more of what that love means. Twice over John said it. God wants to perfect his love, uh, in our hearts, what for? That we might have boldness in the day of judgment, that's what for. God wants to have every single believer devoid of fear completely. Calm. Utterly sure. Not afraid to abandon himself completely to God. Happy to say I commit myself to God, let God do what he will. And the certain knowledge that abandoned to God like that, God will be nothing but love towards us. Oh, what a lovely thing. Maybe we got a certainty and assurance of our salvation when we first came. Maybe we got more assurance as the weeks went on, but perhaps any any one of us hasn't yet got the full assurance we might have. Perfect love having cast out every fear. On what grounds? On this says John, that as he is, so are we in this world. And the hour is late, and my time is done, so that I mustn't trouble you with the, the devious discussions of the theologians over this verse. Suffice it to say that there are two interpretations held, and the one interpretation wishes to guard the very foundation of our faith and says, now look, as he is, so are we. This is the basis of our sureness in the day of judgment. What can it mean? It must mean this, that as Christ has died for us and risen and gone back to heaven and has been accepted by God, just as he is there now accepted by God, and there is not a thought of his ever being cast out. So are we accepted of God, even though we're still in this world. And that's perfectly true. I have no quarrel with those who say like that, because what they say is absolutely true. That Christ has been accepted, and God would never cast Christ out. But then he shall not cast out any believer, because we are accepted in the beloved, and in that sense, as he is, so are we. But to be honest with you, I don't think that's what John meant, not here. John has already secured it that our title to heaven is found solely in the death of Christ. John is about to emphasize once more that the security rests here, that God loved us, not that we love God. God loved us, and even were we never to love, yet our salvation rests here, that God loves us. And yet, says John, you know, there is an added ground for hope and confidence. What's that, John? Why, if you will let God's love flow through you to that other man, and you find that God's Holy Spirit is really in you, moving you to love people that otherwise you wouldn't love, moving you to go out and preach and bear witness that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Moving you to express God's love in speech, in action. You will constantly come in your heart ever increasingly to understand God. And the more you speak him, and the more you act him, the more certain you'll be in your heart that God is love. And it will so permeate your being that presently you'll look round and you'll say, well, fancy that, this is not my goodness. I heartily admit that. If I love at all, it's only because God started it, and it's God's love really, and it's God's love loving through me. And if while I'm in this world, God is pouring out his love through me to other folk, with what utter assurance can I leave this world and face God? I see already how great is his love, though I do not see it fully. When I get home at last and see it fully displayed, you think it will be any less than I see it now to be? No, no. His own very heart of love is beginning to impress itself on mine and show itself through me. I am as he is. What What made need I I fear? fear that coming day of judgment? Then says John, let us leave our lesson for the moment, and let us come down to the actualities of life, that those of us who are beloved of God seek his grace to love forever. Or, where there is no love, where the man positively hates his brother, says Says John, John. how dwelleth the love of God in that man? That man surely is a liar. That man has not known God, has not seen. For to say I love God, and yet to hate my brother. That is to show that I do not really love God at all. You see, if I claim that God has loved me, though I am a sinner, and yet I refuse to love the other man because he is a sinner. I'm denying the very gospel I preach. And I'm showing that the love of God doesn't really dwell in me. Oh, said somebody then, I don't know. I was beginning to enjoy that address about God's love, and now you've unsettled me as I go home because nowadays, sometimes I do get a little spiteful feeling towards, uh, Mrs. So-and-So. And you say that if I get one or two spiteful feelings towards Mrs. So-and-So, sometimes I wish I could knock her head off, not literally, you know, but that's how I feel. Then I can't be a Christian. No, no, no. Look. That old evil nature is within us. When Mrs. So-and-so, or Mr. So-and-so for that matter, uh, sins against me and stamps on my toes pretty hard, my old nature will rise up. Perhaps my just nature will rise up, and I shall say that that was perfectly unjust and wicked. But then I shall remember, shall I not, that there is a source of love, that if I am prepared, will flow out and control my feelings. A true believer will say, yes, Lord, I feel like knocking his block off, but Lord, um, if you'd have treated me like that. Lord, be in me. So that by your love I treat that so and so as you have treated me. But the man that says, I don't care what you say about God, I hate the man, and I will do my very best to damage him. He's denying God. He is repudiating God. For in repudiating love, he Mm-hmm. repudiates Through the end. God, God, for for God God. is love. The Lord bless his word to our hearts on his way.