Matthew chapter 22. And we'll begin reading with verse 34. But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. And then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Our gracious God and heavenly father, we have assembled ourselves here in this place at this time. Lord, as I stand before these, your people, I give you thanks, first of all, for your precious son who was willing to be sent and to work out for us, which we could never work out for ourselves. That you could be delighted with sinners as you see sinners through his blood. That he would come and redeem unto himself a people and that in mercy you have included such as us. Thank you for this assembly and for what it means to this community and even unto the world. Thank you for our own home church and pray that you would supply our needs as we surely do have them. Father, I pray that you'd help me to preach nothing but the word this morning and may what I say be true and be honoring unto you and your son. And I ask you to forgive my sins for there are many for Christ's sake. Amen. I believe that whenever the Lord Jesus opened his mouth to instruct, in particular, the Pharisees, but even his own, their reaction was probably a lot of times surprise. There are places that say in the scripture that he taught them. With authority, but not as the scribes. And I think this would. Come under that heading. Surprise at these words of Jesus. We are commanded to love God. Command. In fact, I find verse 40 to be just about impossible to get my mind around. On these two commandments, basically both tables of the law. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets, which to thou shalt love. The Lord, thy God, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. What a world it would be if we would do this. Now, with that statement, verse 40. And as you think back briefly over the sum of the Old Testament and you see. Some of the terrible things that are recorded there. Famines. sieges, battles, losses, plagues. Why, at one time, even the earth itself opened up and swallowed up the offended people. And yet, Jesus says on these two commandments hang all the law and if I may, all the prophets on love. Folks, have you ever been reading the scriptures and just kind of sit back and think, you know, I wouldn't have written it like that. That's because we wouldn't have written it correctly. But if love is so important, and it is. We don't find much of it. Listed, mentioned or commanded. Early on in the scriptures, do we? What commandment did Adam receive? He had one commandment. Really, basically, one negative commandment. Don't eat of that tree, that tree is mine. Now I would think if love plays such a central part in all the law and the prophets, maybe the first thing I might have said to Adam was, you better love me, if I'd been in God's place. But he didn't say that. It's not recorded for us. Never told to love God that I could find in the scriptures anywhere. I can't find where the patriarchs were commanded to love him. Now I do read in Genesis chapter 32 and verse 10, Jacob's statement where he says, I am not worthy. of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth with thou has showed under thy servant. For with my staff, I passed over this door to not become two bands. What's he saying here? If he's not saying it, he's at least inferring that, Lord, I love you for how you bless me. We can infer that Abel must surely have loved the Lord because he followed God's direction as to what constituted proper worship. Bring me blood, he said. You know the story. And Abel said, I will. Cain, on the other hand, said, I don't think that's necessary. I don't believe that's what I want to do. When Abram got up and walked off, not knowing where he's going, just because God said to, I believe that infers love. In fact, the Lord talking about Israel in one place, he said, I remember when you followed after me into the wilderness. You know, that showed love. I mean, if they looked ahead into the wilderness, really nothing was inviting out there. But he was out there. He led them there. So as Jesus says, thou shalt love. What did he mean? And I'll tell you. The world doesn't know what he meant. And I think sometimes we as his people forget. What he meant. Love like this. Love like this, agape love. Paul wrote a great deal about that love, didn't he, in the first book of the Corinthians, chapter 13. What defines that kind of love? One of my former pastors, Brother Carter, he would say these little quick sentences, you know, A lot of times they were just light and fluffy, but he said you can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. And I think that's right. What's at the heart of that kind of love? It's got to be giving. Giving. To the point of sacrifice. Giving to the point of complete sacrifice. John 3, 16, which I don't know, maybe nearly everyone can quote. God so loved. Can't put a measurement on so and say he loved this much, but no more. How much did he love? Well, he sent. Son was willing to go. You find that in the 40th Psalm. But he sent his son. Now, what more could God have done to prove his love for the world than to send his son? Knowing what was going to befall him, God so loved. That's the kind of love we are to have. That's the kind of love Jesus is talking about. Loving our God and loving our neighbor. That's what he demands. And, you know, we ought to love him. We ought to. He's worthy to be loved. Just looking at it from a standpoint of logic. I mean, coldly, clinically, logically, he's worthy to be loved. God is a personality. He is a person. He is manifested. In father, son, spirit, yes. But he has personality. And the fact that he is singularly God, we ought to love him. The fact that he's our creator, we ought to love him. He says in Isaiah 44 and verse 8, Fear ye not, neither be afraid, have I not told thee from that time and have declare it, ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me here? There is no God. I know not any. We ought to love God for that reason alone. That ought to be enough. Some noble doxologies in the New Testament, I like 1st Timothy 1.17, now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever, amen. Jude 1.25, to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and ever, amen. We ought to love a God like that. We ought to love a God like He is. Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. And by the way, really, when it comes to worship, that ought to be our first impetus, that he is our creator. Whether we are unsaved or whether we are saved, we are duty-bound to worship him just because he's our creator. But we who are redeemed, oh, how we ought to love him. I like that song, too, that he sang. I'd never heard it before. Oh, to love him above everything. To love him. You know, if we love someone, do we not know about them a little bit? Do we not find out about them a little bit? When we met our spouse, did we not want to know about that person? Their likes and their dislikes, try to please them? You know, our God has likes and dislikes. There are things he likes, there are things that he dislikes, things that he hates. After the flood, Noah made a sacrifice, didn't he? And when the smoke went up, I guess it was, it says that God smelled a sweet savor. I think he liked that. I think he liked that because it pictured his son. I think he liked the fact that David paid for a plot of ground on which he was to worship. I think God liked that. I'll not worship what doesn't cost me anything, David said. I think God liked it when he said that. I think he liked the way Enoch conducted himself. Because the book of Hebrews tells us he had this testimony that he pleased God. I think he liked the way Enoch walked in this world. He has some things he hates. some things that are an abomination to him. I want to read a list of those, and I'll not take a lot of time with this, but he has some eight, some things that he finds unbearable, objectionable, curseable, if you will, in Proverbs. Chapter six and verse 16, these six things doth the Lord, eight, eight, seven, are an abomination unto him, a proud look, lying tongue and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among the brethren. We would do well to know what God likes and what he does not. And we would do well to try to live up to the things that God likes. We would do, I would do well. And really, I'll share this with you folks. I didn't want to preach the sermon because this sermon's not really for you, it's for me. It's for me. We ought to love our God. He ought to be universally loved. Why? He's completely good. And not only is he completely good, he does good things for not only the saved, but the unsaved as well. I love what the psalmist said in 34 and 8, Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. You know, I'm sorry, but a lot of people have tasted and they find that they are not suited for him and they turn away. But the Lord is good. Psalm 100 and verse 5. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations. The Lord is good. Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good. Psalm 135, verse 3. Sing praises unto his name, for it is pleasant. Remember how angry Jonah got, remember? That misguided preacher, as he was. And after the Lord was merciful to Nineveh, what Jonah said, I mean, what a testimony to the depraved nature of man. Verse 1 of chapter 4 of Jonah, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly. He was very angry. Why? Because God saw their works and repented from the evil that he was due unto them. He did it not. It displeased Jonah exceedingly. He was very angry, and he prayed unto the Lord, said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarsus, for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. You know, for Jonah to have such a bad reaction, he sure seemed to know the Lord pretty well. I knew you were so good, Lord. He is good. Why should a God that good have to command his creation to love him? Why should he have to do that? I don't know how long it was there in Eden before the woman and Adam found themselves with that tree, the only place, the only thing God kept from the man. They found themselves right there, you know. How long was that? I don't know. But I will say this, we don't learn Eve's name until after the fall, the first time we see her name. Might have been the very first day, I don't know. The reason that a God like that has to command his creation to love him is that there's something wrong with us. There is nothing wrong with him. The fact that he has to command us to love him proves there's something wrong with us. What happened to Israel? Israel let out of Egypt, not by their own power, Picturing the salvation of sinners, they didn't do that themselves. Brought to the mountain, frightened as they were, smoke, fire, thunderings, trumpets. Moses is getting the law. He was up there for a while, so they started sinning. Right there, right there at the mountain, right there when Moses was getting the commandment, fashioning an idol to try to get back to where they felt they were at home. And you don't think, well, shame on Israel. If you go to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, find that Paul is telling us by the Spirit, you know what, you're Israel. That's our example, learn from what they did, because that's you, and that's me. Where has man succeeded when it comes to eternal things, the worship of God, serving him, loving him, where have we succeeded in that? Haven't we failed everywhere? Surely we failed in Eden. We might have had our best shot there in Eden, you know. No sin nature to encumber us. And yet we sinned. Surely we failed in the wilderness. Surely we failed in Canaan. Surely we failed in the kingdom time in Israel. We failed all of those places, didn't we? What about the Lord's churches? Are we failing? Are we failing? If we're not failing, then someone please tell me what the Lord meant when he said in Luke chapter 18, verse 8, I tell you that he will avenge this feedly. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, what? Shall he find the faith on the earth? What does that mean? Are we failing as his churches today? What happened when God manifested himself as a man? What did we do when we encountered him? Was he universally loved? Did we fall to our knees and thank God in heaven for manifesting himself in such a glorious way to where the apostle John could say we handled him? We've seen him with our eyes. We've handled him. We know the word of God left the glory of heaven and tabernacled in a human body for 33 and a half years or however long it was. And we saw him. And I want you to believe it, John said. Believe it. What did we do to him? No one should have been more glad to see him than Israel. What advantage hath the Jew? Much every way. Chiefly unto them was given the word. Were they glad to see him, especially those that sat in Moses' seat? Were they happy? When the heir himself came, John 10, 32, Jesus answered them, many good works have I showed you from my father. What a tremendous understatement that is. For which of those works do you stone me? Remember when he opened the book of Isaiah there before the people? And with a surgeon's precision read from the 61st chapter. And he stopped at the right place and he closed the book and he said, this day is a scripture fulfilled in your ears. And they said, we know who you are. We're going to kill you. But it wasn't his time, of course. That's what we did to him. Why did Cain kill Abel? Was he mad at Abel? I believe God literally embarrassed Cain to the point where he was so angry with God, he took it out on his brother because he could reach Abel. There was Abel right there. Well, God manifested himself to us. in a man's body, and what did we do? Have we ever treated any other human being so shamefully as we treated God's own son? Have we ever? Who has died a worse death than Jesus Christ? Especially when you consider who he is. When sinful man was given license to do with the God-man as their privity would dictate, they spit on him, they hit him, they put a crown of thorns on his head, they whipped him, they nailed him to a cross, they mocked him. That's what we did to him. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul, all thy mind. You shall love me, he said. And we hated him. It turns out that fallen man and God are mortal enemies. I may be wrong and I often am, but I sense that a whole lot of those who are yet unsaved are unaware of the war that exists between them and a holy God. And I might add a holy, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God. God is angry with the wicked every day. The wicked either don't know or don't care. And it seems to me that there's no middle ground. I think that's what Jesus meant when he said, he that is not for us is against us. He that is not against us is for us. It's not, well, I'm going to think about serving God. At some point, maybe I will. Therefore, I'm uncommitted. Therefore, I'm fine until such time as I decide. No. If he doesn't see us through the blood of the lamb, then we're his enemies. I didn't know that before the Lord saved me. I think I know it now. Romans 2, 4, or despises thou the riches of His goodness. You know, that's a profound statement about us, isn't it? Do you despise the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering like Jonah? Not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. What about the redeemed? Do we have a real sense from what God has delivered us? What awaits The unrepentant, the unregenerate? What awaits them? Do we have any sense of that? You know, if that wicked king was impressed with those three young Hebrew men who came out of that furnace alive without even the smell of smoke on them, if he was impressed by that, how grateful should we who are redeemed be? Because that wicked king was right, no God other than this can deliver life of this sort. And you know, not even thinking about the coming judgment, you know, God's people, I believe so many times, maybe we're unaware of it, maybe we'll never know it, but we're delivered out of many snares and traps that this world has for us, and we don't even know it. We ought to love him so much. We ought to love him so much, we ought to hate that which would take us away from him. Did not Jesus say that the chief identifying characteristics of his people would be love one for another? Did he not say that? He did in John chapter 13. That's how I'm going to tell. That's how people tell. That's how people tell that you're mine. That kind of love, the kind of love Jesus was talking about back in Matthew, chapter 22, that kind of love as that kind of love works its way out. People are going to know your mind, he said. Does it concern you ever how that when we go where we go to worship him, does it ever concern you about when it's all over? What did God think of that? What did God really think of the worship service that I attended today? What did God think of that sermon I preached today? You know, sometimes when you deliver a sermon, sometimes the people say, that was a blessing to me. And, you know, that's nice for a preacher to hear, but, you know, what did God think of it? I'm so glad one time I heard you say on a tape, we ought to study to prove ourselves wrong. And I thought about that for a minute. You know, that's right. Because even if I believe it to my very core, if it's wrong, I want to forsake it. I want to abandon it. I want to adhere to that, which is true. When I preach, I want God to say that was my word. And I know that I make mistakes. But I don't want to preach nothing but the truth, even if I have to learn it as I'm studying it, even if I never knew it before. Because that's happened. How does God feel about our worship? How does God feel about us? Does God respond to acts of sacrificial love, that which we might do and maybe nobody knows about it, that cost us something? What does that do to God? There's a chapter in the book of Isaiah. It's chapter 43. And in it, God declares basically who he is, what he does, the blessings that he has bestowed upon Israel. I am the Lord, he says, I am your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. I have done this, it is me. And then he says, in verse 23, thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings, neither hast thou honored me with thy sacrifices, I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense. Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices, but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, with all thy strength. They never went, what does the Lord say? You never went out of your way for me. You never bought me anything that you didn't have to buy me. You fulfilled the sacrifices as though they were your obligations, and they were, but obligations only. Not one drop of blood too much, not one more calf. You never went out of your way for me. Folks, God went plenty out of his way for us. And you know, the prophet delivers this, I guess, and then I guess somebody in Israel said, you know what we better do, don't you? You guys, we better go get some sweet cane. We better go get some, apparently he wants it. Jeremiah chapter 6 verse 20, to what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba and the sweet cane from a far country? To what purpose? Well, we did it. There's your sweet cane you wanted. Even the right offering can be iniquity when it's offered in hypocrisy. How does the Lord view worship? Well, Isaiah chapter one will tell you a whole lot about how he saw Israel's worship. To get right to the point, pretty much, Israel, your worship made me sick. Really, I can't stand it. You come and you do, I guess mechanically, That which I've commanded you to do, but you don't want to. You don't want to. He hates false worship. He hates hypocritical worship. Where are we as the Lord's churches? Jesus said in another place, because iniquity shall abound. What? Love of many shall wax cold." You know, for years, I read that as, you know, lost people's love because of iniquity. I think he's talking to his people. Our love will wax cold because of iniquity. Why? Because iniquity will be so much around us and in us that we won't even know it's iniquity anymore. Maybe that's it. And maybe if we regard iniquity, then the Lord might not hear our prayers. What about us? What about us churches? What do we love? What do we love? Do we love Him? That's a soul-searching question if I ever heard it. Do we love Him? Is it possible that we have embodied that seventh church in Asia Minor, Laodicea? Is that possible? What was the chief characteristic of that church which was a real church? All of those churches, they all were evaluated by the Lord. Some of them had terrible, terrible problems. Had we been in charge, we might have taken their candlestick. The candlesticks were all in place as Revelation 2 and 3 were unfolding. Laodicea was still a church of the Lord. But what were they like? I tried to go through Revelations 2 a couple years ago and I agree with the brother, I can't teach that book. But I kind of have the feeling that Laodicea might have been the church everybody liked to go to. You know, I don't know. It might have been that church that had the facilities that would lend itself to a conference better than the other churches. It might have been, you know, a friendly group of folks that would welcome you and all of that, but when they gathered around the Word, they read the Word, the Word was preached, and they wound up saying, we don't need anything. We're just fine like we are. That's what they were saying to the point that Jesus was knocking at the door of her entrance. Didn't they miss him? Is that a picture of the Shekinah glory? Taking leave from the Holy Spirit? What about us? What do we love? Is it the Lord Jesus? Is it God, our Father? Is it our indwelling comforter, Spirit? Do we love them? Do we love Him? Or is it something else? You know, we can take good things and make them idols. We can take the doctrines of this precious book and make it an idol and begin to love the doctrine more than we love the one who wrote it, who gave it to us. I think it's possible. It's possible for us to get to such a place where we say, I'm rich. I'm increased with goods. I have need of nothing. And don't know. What? Don't know. Wretched, poor, blind, naked. And even then, what does Jesus do even then? He says, I'll help you. I will help you. I will fix you. Because there's no end to the death of his mercy. And you can't measure self. Now, the part of the sermon I really don't want to preach to you people, and that is how much do I love him? As I as much as this depraved human can give an objective look to his own heart, which Jeremiah tells me I'm on shaky ground there at best. Much do I love him? Again, Brother Carter used to say, if you're a Christian and you were put on trial, would there be enough evidence to convict you? What about how I feel about him? You know, it's not like I'm my own or anything, because I have been bought with a price, a price that I could never Therefore, I am not my own. And as I submitted to the ordinance of baptism, I was declaring, although I didn't really realize it as I should at the time, that I was dead now. But now it's coming up that I can live in the newness of Christ. I am co-crucified with Christ, Paul said. Nevertheless, I live. Folks, I am not measuring up to that standard. I am not, and I say that to my shame. What about my substance? Do I give of my substance as I am led to do? Am I comfortable with the tithe? You know, I've heard the tithe get some bad press here and there of late. I like best what my old teacher, Brother Bowling, used to say. Well, I know how much I can give before I start giving, he said. Am I a hilarious giver? What about that? What about my time? What about my private time with him? What about my prayers? What about my thoughts toward him? Does that affect God at all? Malachi 316, then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another. Do we do that? And the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that what? Fought upon his name. Where am I? Sometimes I listen to myself. talk and I think, you know, that I should know better by now. I'm 62 years old now. When is this, you know, when does some of the wisdom of old age, when do I start displaying some of that wisdom? Why am I drawn to this and that and the other thing that has no place in eternity within? Why do I bother with stuff that is pointless? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, with all thy strength. Shame he has to command us to do that. It's even bigger shame when we don't. And I know that as long as I inhabit this house where sin lives, this body of death, and I know that until I awaken his likeness, I'm going to be this way. But help me, Lord, not to condone my sin or to dismiss my sin or to play it down. It's not an excuse, my depravity. It's not a reason. We are commanded to put off the old man like a set of dirty clothes, peel him off. In fact, mortify, literally choke the life of the old man till he's dead. I'm pretty sure. that I still have some kindly affection for the old man, and it ought not to be. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. All so easy to say. Lord help us that we may honor him and love him and serve him as we should. Thank you all for your time and your attention. Lord bless you.