Psalm 18:1-3 I will love you, O LORD, my strength.… It will awaken surprise in you to hear this question, yet it cannot exceed mine on hearing it, as I once did, from a distinguished man whom I had long regarded as truly devout. Being together at the house of his relative, this man, of worldwide reputation as a man of genius, astonished me with this question, "What do you understand by love to God?" I looked at him with surprise; but before I could speak he added, "I know what fear of God means; but I do not understand what is meant when I am called upon to love God." Had I uttered the .thought which arose in my mind I should have said, "I always supposed you to be a Christian; can it be possible that you have need that one should teach you the alphabet of religious experience? But I put questions to him, encouraged by his frank nature, and I now discovered that his difficult was this, that loving God implied a degree of familiarity which seemed to him unsuitable in a finite creature when approaching his Creator. He acknowledged that the language of the Bible encouraged the idea of familiarity in our intercourse with God; still, he preferred to explain all such permission by what he called Orientalism. In vain was it urged in reply that Orientalism rather forbade than encouraged liberty in approaching Majesty; prostration, even to abjectness, was enjoined on ministers of state, as well as menial servants. Hence there are two extremes against which we have need to be on our guard. One is familiarity; the other is stoicism. The apostles maintain a just medium between these extremes. The question which I have already mentioned as put to me by a man of distinguished genius was also expressed by a plain man, a mechanic, he was in the last stages of a decline, but in full possession of his faculties. Once as I was leaving his bedside he said, "One thing more I wish to ask: I lie here and talk with God in a way which startles me. I use expressions of endearment, address Him by affectionate names, make requests as a child to a parent, indulge in words of adoration; all of which, on second thought, seem to me too free for a mortal to use in his intercourse with his Master. Yet my feelings are so strong that I cannot restrain myself." I said to him, "You ask, May you love God thus? The Saviour says, quoting the Old Testament, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.' Do you ever exceed this. An expression of satisfaction came over his face. The next day he had gone to see Him "whom not having seen" he "loved." The words of the text leave no room to question that the, predominant feeling of David was this, "I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength." Then he proceeds to heap up epithets of love to God. He draws them from his experience in wildernesses and caves. Had he been a seafaring man we doubtless should have had him saying, "Thou art my lighthouse, my pilot, my harbour; to Thee I am homeward bound; with Thee I am safe home." How enthusiastic in passionate expression of love to God is all true religious poetry. And when a man is converted, how his heart goes out in love to God. See this in Paul. And here is one instance from the preaching of the Gospel, and there are scores of such. A man was riding home on horseback after evening service, meditating on what he had heard. He was secretly persuaded to yield himself up to God, when all at once light from heaven broke upon his mind, revealing to him the way of salvation by Christ with a sense of peace with God and the joy of pardoned sin; so that he found himself in a new world. Unable to contain his joy at the discovery, having no one at home who could enter into his feelings, turning his horse's head, he rode back three miles to the minister's house, and called him to the door. Taking both of the minister's hands in his, he cried out, "Oh, sir! what a God we have!" which was the substance of all that he said, for it was impossible for words to express his emotions, and he mounted and rode home, singing and praying. No one would have found it more impossible than he to answer the question, "What do you understand by loving God?" — he whose whole being was at that hour flooded with it could have found no words to define his emotions. Does anyone say, "Of what value can such emotions be to God?" We might answer him, Of what value is anything to God? He will one day give up this globe to fire. There is nothing of any value to God except love. The whole object of God in the Bible seems everywhere to have been to make men love Him. I. THE EXPERIENCE OF MEN IN THE BIBLE SHOWS US THAT THE SUM OF HUMAN DUTY IS TO LOVE GOD. See the Book of Deuteronomy, to which our Lord so often referred. It is full of expostulations to urge Israel to love God. Joshua, too, does not hid them tremble, as he well might, in view of their stupendous history, but "love the Lord." Some will say this seems very strange. Let such consider that there is no way in which, on account of the hardness of our hearts, God brings us to love Him more effectually than by His terrible dispensations. When night comes down in the Azores the lavender beds yield perfumes which all day long the hot sun had consumed. After a storm we look for sea mosses and pebbles which the working of the sea has ,brought on shore. "The Lord hath said that He will dwell in the thick darkness" — so spoke Solomon, and it is true. If God. desires to draw a Christian very near to Himself, He will almost always send a heavy trial upon him. David said, "When He hath tried me I shall come forth as gold." We see Christians who have been grievously afflicted, cleaving to God the more that He smites them. If God has set His love on a man He may honour him by great trials. He cannot trust all to bear great trials. He said of Saul of Tarsus, "I will show him how great things he must suffer, for My sake." Probably there is nothing which excites the admiration of angels more than to see us loving God the more that He afflicts us. Then they see the power of faith; how it makes a man endure as seeing Him who is invisible. II. THE CROSS OF CHRIST IS THE DIVINE TESTIMONY TO MAN, NOT ONLY THAT HE MAY BUT THAT HE MUST LOVE GOD. See how John in his epistles insists on this, that God is Love. The governing principle in God is love. Other attributes belong to Him, but He is none of them. "God is Love." Therefore He must desire the love of His people. They are born of the Spirit. Shall man, His new creation, be a cold, phlegmatic, intellectual being? May we be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fulness of God. (N. Adams, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: {To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, the servant of the LORD, who spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul: And he said,} I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. |
    |