The Love of God, Part 4 B

You cannot isolate one attribute of God and let it erase all the rest, so God will love but he loving he will not obliterate his judgment.

God is God and God will consistently and purely and with holiness, and that everything that is consistent with every characteristic. In fact, it's hard to avoid being bombarded with reports about the coronavirus pandemic, riots, murders, natural disasters, the bad news is rampant and you know what else you can be certain of your friends, your family or coworkers are hearing those reports as well and they could be wondering why God allows such calamities is, after all, isn't God, a loving God, why would he allow things to happen that could make him look uncaring and cruel. John MacArthur has answers today on grace to you as he continues his series titled the love of God now before John starts the lesson we need to take a minute to talk about some important ministry partners. Men and women who have a direct role in your ability to hear the broadcast your hearing right now John is only fitting to remind our listeners about how important these behind the scenes partners are Jan and Phil, I know what you're referring to, and it's the precious folks who are staffing the radio stations on which our listeners are hearing this people occasionally asked me with all the Internet and development of digital access to two data into information is radio still important and my answer is it's more important than it's ever been.

It is for most people the entry point radio is critical for our ministry that hasn't diminished. In fact, we believe it's escalated in importance.

But what makes radio such a valuable partner is the staff of the radio station. We thank the Lord for these people, we wouldn't be reaching the people that we reach without that partnership. So I'm just going to urge you listeners. I know you're grateful for our ministry coming to you on your radio station and others as well.

You need to let those people know the right of a letter, give him a phone call cinema text whatever means you used to send an email and tell the folks at the radio station how much grace to you means to you. Let them know the ministry has touched their lives and be specific. Give your testimony to them because they need to hear that in the end, when you connect the station in a personal way to your life. You also affirm the ministry of grace to you. So as a listener did take the opportunity to thank the folks who partner with us to make this ministry possible.

They need your gratitude is much as we do so. Do it today. Won't you then tell them thanks on our behalf as well. Yes please do that to send a letter or email to the team at this radio station. I know it will encourage them and also know that we love to hear from you I will pass on our contact information after the lesson, but right now, stay here as John continues his study on the love of God. God love us in a way that is consistent with his full glory.

God lives in a manner that is consistent with his full glory. God glorifies himself by manifesting all of his person and God's saving purpose and God's love is tied to God's glory, not man's. It is tied to God's purposes, not man's. It is tied to God's desires, not man's.

And God's will, not me. Delicate Jeremiah 14 and this is nothing new, but another illustration among many of this great principal Jeremiah 14 verse seven. Although our iniquities testify against us.

Oh Lord, act for thy namesake to see the prophets really understood this, that God was compelled to do what ever revealed his glory. That's what he did.

Our iniquities testify against us. But, oh Lord. Act for thy namesake.

What is he saying, forgive us, because that too will display your glory. Later in the chapter. Look at verse 20 we know our wickedness. Oh Lord, the iniquity of our fathers.

We've sinned against. They do not despise us why. For thine own namesake. Do not disgrace the throne of thy glory. Remember, and do not know thy covenant with us. In other words, what they're saying is God you made a promise to this nation. You can't leave us in this kind of situation you gotta come back your glory is at stake. What what aspect of his glory, not his wrath, not his grace, not as patients but his is faithful to his promise because he made a covenant, do it for your own namesake don't disgrace the throne of your glory. Remember, and don't know your covenant to see the Old Testament prophets in the psalmist all understood and so did the people. But whatever God did he did for his own glory.

That's the simple truth and of God chooses to save some and not others. That is, to the glory of God, because God does what is consistent with his glory.

In Romans chapter 1 in verse five, Paul says that it the grace of God which called him to be an apostle by which you preach the gospel, which brought about the obedience of faith among the nations and the verse five was for his namesake. Again, salvation is for God's glory.

Third John that little epistle says in verse seven, they went out for the sake of the name they preach the gospel for the sake of the name for the glory of God. Salvation is for God's glory.

Vengeance is for God's glory. Patients is for God's glory. Faithfulness is for God's glory every aspect of God's nature puts his glory on display and you cannot isolate one attribute of God and let it erase all the rest, so God will love but in loving he will not obliterate his judgment in showing compassion. He will not eliminate his justice, God is God and God will consistently and perfectly and purely and with absolute holiness enact everything that is consistent with every characteristic that he possesses. So, for the purposes of his eternal glory.

God does what he does, whether it is to save sinners or damn them. We can say it this way.

While God loves the world, while God is not willing that any should perish. While God finds no pleasure in the death of the wicked. While God feels compassion for all who die in their sins. While God offers warnings of judgment and a gospel invitation to the whole world. In the end he will still be glorified by the damnation of sinners, or he wouldn't do it because he will always do what gives him glory is sincere and legitimate and real love to sinners is not separated from his ultimate glory.

His ultimate glory demands that he not save everybody or he would you say will then how can his love. Be real well. Human judge may have a sincere compassion for a guilty criminal, sincere, petty, real tenderness, and yet be forced to have them executed to uphold the standard of justice. You see, enacting justice does not necessarily eliminate compassion, you can weep over one because you love that one.

While at the same time upholding the standard of righteousness.

RL Dabney writes about chief justice Marshall, who wrote a book called the life of Washington. Actually several volumes on the history of George Washington in one section in that work on Washington deals with major Andrea famous name you remember.

And Marshall in writing about. Washington says this perhaps on no occasion of his life.

Did the commander-in-chief obey with more reluctance the stern mandates of duty and of policy" in other words, he felt compassion and love and affection for the man, but the standard of righteousness had to be upheld in order to maintain the integrity of his office, and the dignity of his person about that incident, Dabney comments in this historical instance, we have these facts. Washington had plenary power to kill or to save a life. It was commander-in-chief. Yet he signed his death warrant was spontaneous decisiveness goes on to say every deliberate, rational, volition is regulated by the agent's dominant subjective disposition and prompted by his own subjective motive, but that motive is a complex, not a simple modification of spirit as well put. To make that kind of judgment doesn't mean the only thing he felt was justice. There was a complex of motives, a complex of attitudes, but the end result was the result of the most compelling of those Dabney goes on to say the motive of a single decision may be complex, involving many intellectual considerations of prudence or righteous policy in several distinct and even competing for pensions of the optative powers Washington's volition to sign the death warrant of Andre did not arise from the fact that his compassion was slight or feigned, but from the fact that it was rationally counterpoise by a complex of superior judgments and pretensions of wisdom, duty, patriotism and moral indignation. He says the pity was real but was restrained by superior elements of motive. Washington had official and bodily power to discharge the criminal that he had not the sanction of justice and God has that complex of motives, which in the end must manifest justice not in every case but in some at his own discretion.

No, this should be obvious to any thinking person who looks at Scripture.

It is obvious God seeks his own glory right. It is obvious that everything he does is for his glory.

His glory is the manifestation of the fullness of who you therefore he's going to get glory in wrath as well as in grace. So is going to do what manifest wrath as well as grace we see that throughout the Old Testament.

Some people's some people live and are forgiven and some work were killed by God directly in their sin right and God made those choices and was glorified. In either case, when he judged and destroyed the people in Israel that gave him glory. When he forgave and restored them. That gave him glory. And the point is that God will be glorified in all those ways now there are some people who don't want to accept that and so that this is the scenario that they will come up with. God loves everybody so much. God wants everybody say and and God is is calling everyone to be saved, but the power to be saved is not.

He is a thin man and man refuses to exercise that power. He refuses to make that move and make that choice because he loves us and and his sin is more powerful than God right when you have to conclude that God wants everybody to be saved and the power is in man and God wants him to be saved and God does everything he can do to get them saved, but they don't become saved, then whatever is working in them is more powerful than God. And then you have to add another component and they say also the difficulty is that Satan is making a lifelong effort to keep the person from believing so. The combination of their own fallen flesh and sin, and the efforts of Satan are just more clever and more powerful than God I can't accept it because those who believe that are saying God wants everybody saved and he's exerting all his power all his omnipotence that he can muster on the free will of the sinner, hoping he will repent and believe for salvation. God is not indifferent. He is loving, he's compassionate. He's working as hard as he can to get people say and they just won't know such a perspective saves the sincerity of God. It saves the love of God at the expense of the power of God and the sovereignty of God right is really not in charge and he can't pull it off. Though he is sincerely compassionate and he does love that diminishes God's glory.

On the other hand, let's go the other way. Some would say no, God has the power, by the way, that was an Arminian approach. Some would say God has the power and God has the sovereignty he is hates sinners, so he doesn't care about doesn't feel anything toward the hyper Calvinist perspective is not loving is not compassionate.

He just loves his own and what you've done.

There is you saved the sovereignty of God and the power of God at the expense of what the love the compassion of God can't do that either because the Bible is replete with evidence that God loves and is compassionate. How else to explain the tears of Jesus.

Luke 1941 when he wept over Jerusalem, how do you how do you explain the tears of God that were cried to the eyes of Jeremiah, how do you explain the tears of Paul.

God loves and God is compassionate and God grieves and God aches because he cares about sinners is pity Israel is compassion is real.

His love is real, but that does not mean that he saves everyone because pity and love and compassion are overridden by weightier matters in God's eternal purpose. God truly pities but that pity is counterbalanced by superior motives, so that even though he pities the sinner, he does not will to save the center because if he did he would call wise mind of God can look at the multiplicity of issues in his vast kingdom and he has good reasons and motives to do every single thing he does actions for which we have not the least conception we have no idea why, but we do know this is our ultimate goal is not to please the evangelical majority. His ultimate goal is not the greatest aggregate of well-being among his creatures. His ultimate goal is what is glory and we don't know all the ways in which God may deem his glory is most highly promoted. Although we can say is this whatever God does in saving whatever he does in damning whatever he does in electing whatever he does in rejecting is the most for his glory beyond anything else. And apart from every other consideration. God's purpose is not to make the most sinners in the universe. Happy purpose is to glorify himself and God may see in his omniscience, divinely rational ground for every single thing he does, though we can't see it at all.

God knows and does what brings him glory. And obviously he is glorified when vessels are fitted for wrath, just as when vessels are prepared for glory.

A monarch, let's say benevolent king has two murderers before him on trial both guilty of murder and has committed a crime equal to murder or be there. The culpability is exactly the same.

However, murder a is a physician medical practitioner murder be as absolutely no knowledge of the craft murder a is not just a physician.

He is the best the king finds both a and B equally guilty, yet he reprieves a Y because in his kingdom. There is a plague and that plague is destroying lives, and he knows that the skill of this position can save lives. So a is reprieved simply because of the skill to help the suffering be his hang time for murder, but some people think he's hang for not going to medical school, but that's the miss the point. They who escapes was equally guilty of murder is the true, then the B was really hang because he didn't know medicine no B was saying because he murdered a was spared because there was a purpose which the king knew he could fulfill so it is with God, we all should be damned. But God has designed for some of us to fulfill a redemptive purpose and purely on that basis alone. We are redeemed, though, as guilty as those who perish, so that it's all of grace and it's all for divine and holy purposes which are unknown to us, apart from the unfolding of those in the experience of our lives. And someday, perhaps, in retrospect, from glory.

God knows what his purposes are to be as wise. He is sovereign's motives are unrevealed to us, but this we know whatever he does, he will do for the sake of his own glory. He will put himself on display is a God of justice, judgment, vengeance, wrath, punishment he will put himself on display is a God of mercy, grace, love, forgiveness, and everything in the middle. I got a patient's a God of faithfulness, the salvation of some sinners and the eternal misery of others, all focuses on God's glory and friends that's all we need to know and then we just worship God for his glory. And then when we think about our own salvation. What does that elicit gratitude overwhelming gratitude while God why out of all why was I in the a group. Why so a true compassion and love for sinners is restrained by a consistent and absolutely holy motive so that it never takes the form of a will to regenerate God's compassion is real. His love is genuine but overall ruling. It is an immutable and sovereign necessity to display his glory in his judgment, and that's why he doesn't save everybody is glory demands the true and complete satisfaction of all his wondrous attributes and when we look at our own lives and we see that we have been saved and we have been forgiven and we been given eternal life, and been imputed the righteousness of Christ and were on our way to eternal glory purely at the discretion of God who prompted our hearts.

It is overwhelming cause for praise and worship and adoration is, it should fill us with thanksgiving. That you come out with every breath, every breath say what about the people on the other side of the Bible addresses them and all I can say is this to those of you who don't know Christ. The issue is always your unbelief. You can't look around to see if your name is on a list of the chosen there's no list at least in this world. You don't need to try to talk to somebody who can find out for you from God, whether you been chosen. What you need to do is repent and believe that's what the Bible tells you fact the Bible says God has commanded all men everywhere to repent and Jesus said him becomes a meal not turn away the book of Revelation ends with this invitation, whosoever will let them come is not an issue of trying to find out if you're if you belong to the ones that God has chosen to display his grace. It's an issue of whether you want to turn from your sin. That's what God says to you turn from your sin. In fact, the prophet said why will you die, repent, turn, turn. Why will you die as if to say, doesn't have to happen these inscrutable truths about the glory of God are beyond us. But one thing is not beyond us if you confess your sins and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved, and on your way to heaven and numbered among the elect and you forever and ever and ever will be an agent through whom God will display the glory of his grace and his love and his mercy and his forgiveness and his kindness and not one through whom he will display forever is justice and his judgment so I say to you what Jesus would say if he were here, repent and believe the gospel believe that Jesus died and rose again for you embrace him as Lord and Savior turning from your sin become one of God's own children entered at the sphere where God is glorified through his goodness and his grace what's bound for father. These passages in these thoughts that come from your word are so profound and yet so essential for us. We can't go through life dictating to you how you ought to act. What you ought to do. We need to gladly submit ourselves to the one compelling driving motive of the whole universe and that is that you would be glorified. No God, we thank you for glorifying yourself. You are worthy to be honored and praise and exalted by all created beings father, thank you for calling sinners to repent and believe in. May sinners do that even this enter into your grace manifestation of your glory through the means of your love for all eternity. Thank you for such a touch such a wonder Christ. This is grace to you with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us.

John has been grace to use featured speaker for over 51 years now. He's also Chancellor of the Masters University in seminary's current study is looking at how the Lord loves you and how you can demonstrate that love to others. It simply titled the love of God will friend.

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How can God be a God of love, if he takes some people to heaven and sends others to hell. Consider that tomorrow when John continues his series of love of God be here for another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on grace to