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     1. Hiding Underneath the Shadow of His Love   (3:24)
     2. We Have Known and Believed the Love   (27:45)

I John 4:16.  And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

John 15:9.  As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

[I’m glad] to notice, by testimonies, that we’re learning precious, precious, precious lessons, wonderful lessons.  And we’re learning them by the Holy Ghost, this great Teacher that enlightens us by Himself, “which none of the princes of this world knew.”  He’s communicating to us a heavenly Wisdom.  Some have expressed their great desire for Jesus.  Some have expressed the fact that they’ve awakened to their great need.  You ain’t seen nothin’ yet! 

When we begin to see our need, then God begins to show us our great Savior, because we don’t want Him when we don’t see that we need Him.  But as God makes us sink into oblivion, makes us sink down in our own inability, and gives us a sight of our utter hopelessness, then He also shows us the great and wonderful provision He has made in the Lord Jesus Christ.  That is salvation.

And what a marvelous subject is this love of God.  “We have known and believed the love that God has to us.”  Now we don’t likely believe until we know.  But oh, to get a sight of that love that God has to us!  That is absolutely unspeakable because that love finds its expression in the Lord Jesus Christ, in this “unspeakable gift.”  Paul says, “the unsearchable riches of Christ,” “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”  “And ye are complete in Him.”  The wonderful thing is that all these unsearchable treasures and riches are provided for me, for you.  And until God gets us to accept these unsearchable riches, we’re not going to be “filled with all the fullness of God,” we’re not going to be pleasing in the sight of the Father.

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“He that feareth has not been made perfect in love.”  When that love—that perfect love—is revealed to me…  And that perfect love is not my love for God, but it’s His love for me.  And when I make room for that love of God for me, why then my heart will become a fountain of love.  It will send forth the rivers of the same love that flows from the Father and the Son into my heart.

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“Boys,” He says, “Where’s your faith?”  “Yeah, but look at the storm!  Never saw anything like it.  We never experienced anything like it.  Can’t you see that we perish?”  Why sure, Jesus saw all that, but He saw the Father.  Oh, beloved, God wants you and me to see that great heart that beats altogether for us—not a human heart, but a divine heart.  “The Almighty is thy refuge.  And underneath are the everlasting arms.”  Madam Guyon says, “We only perish for lack of trusting Him.”  “They that wholly trust Him find Him wholly true.”

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…We don’t know how much we depend upon our love for God.  And sometimes God has to remove it all from us, and make us see that our love is nothing—“our righteousnesses are filthy rags”.  And then people go down in a heap and they give up altogether, instead of rising up then, like a beggar from the dunghill to sit among princes, instead of “coming boldly unto the throne of grace.”  Beloved, we’re saved by grace, “and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.”  And you’ll never have salvation until you receive it as a gift.

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Now this morning, if we’re going to please God, we’re going to have “fullness of joy.”  We’re going to be happy.  We’re going to rejoice exceedingly, not because we’re good or perfect—no, far from it, but because God loved us so deeply, thank God, hallelujah!  And, praise the Lord, we take a leap into this ocean of God’s love and drown in it, thank God!  You’re gone, you’re no more: “deny yourself.”  Praise God, “Looking unto Jesus.  He is the Author of your faith.”  He makes you believe Him.  He—Jesus Christ—makes you believe every promise of God, every promise of God.  And He is “the Finisher of your faith.  He is the one that’ll give you those things and fulfill in you all that He has purposed to do.  Thank God!  Oh, to know the love of God and to believe it!

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“As the Father hath loved Me…”.  How did that love of the Father express itself in Jesus?  Why, the Father gave Himself so fully to His Son, that His Son didn’t have to live, didn’t have to think, didn’t have to speak, didn’t have to do anything.  When He died on the cross, it was “God in Christ that reconciled the world unto Himself.”  All that Jesus needed to do was to walk by the faith of God and abandon Himself to the Father and be united to Him, hallelujah! 

And now He says, “So have I loved you.”  That same life-giving love that pulsates in the Son so that He can say, “The Son can do nothing of Himself,” “The Father that dwelleth in Me…”  That same river of love is waiting to pour into you and through you, glory to God!

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An unkempt young man who transformed himself into a dude for the sake of human affection.    (from 4:06)

Illustration of the minute care of the Lord in finding a lost document.  “I said, ‘Dear Lord, I could trust my foolishness to burn up that check…  But I can trust You: I know You love me enough and You’re interested enough, and You wouldn’t allow me to do that.’”    (from 19:36)

An illustration of a little dishonesty at the age of 14.  “After I got saved, you know, that thing weighed heavily on my heart…  I went to the Lord, and I said, ‘What shall I do?’  And this was the answer: He said, ‘Son, do Me this favor and forget about it!’  He said, ‘Those things have been blotted out in My blood long ago.’”    (from 22:30)

Like a River Glorious, a hymn by Frances R. Havergal, 1876:

Every joy or trial falleth from above,
Traced upon our dial by the Sun of Love;
We may trust Him fully all for us to do.
They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.

Dr. Hall — presumably Franklin Hall of the Latter Rain movement who in 1946 started a prayer and fasting crusade in San Diego.  HRW has spoken elsewhere of that movement with similar disapproval.

The Love of God, a hymn by Frederick M. Lehman, 1917:

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

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