Listening to the words and thinking about it. That's some quality song right there. Some quality words. Song of Solomon chapter 8 in your Bibles, please. Song of Solomon chapter 8. Find Psalms or Proverbs and then go to the right. Ecclesiastes and then Song of Solomon. We're going to read two verses and then preach a message to you on the subject of love. For those of you who are diehard Bible believers, this subject is in the Bible. And before you say, oh, we're not those lovey-dovey type, you're going to be all sissy on us. You want to learn a little bit more about your God, don't you? Your God is love. So we're going to preach on the subject of love. Song of Solomon, chapter 8, verse number 6, set me as a seal upon thine heart and as a seal upon thine arm. For love is strong as death. Jealousy is cruel as the grave. The coals thereof are coals of fire that have the most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. Let's pray. Father, this morning I recognized between me and you, as though nobody's even in this room at all, between me and you, Lord, I realize the subject is way bigger than I'm capable of preaching. And Lord, that's the reason that I've avoided preaching this or struggled with responding to what I believed you had for our church today. And it's just because I know that the subject is bigger than me. And Lord, I want to learn with all my heart how to love you like I should. And I am woefully aware of how far I fall short. And I'm sure that the people are sitting in this room today, if they're honest, Lord, they would admit they fall far short as well of loving God like they ought to. And so, Lord, I pray you'd teach us a little bit from the Bible this morning about love. Our minds have been warped and twisted on this subject to the point where we don't truly know. What love is. And Lord, we need you to teach us, we need your word to reset our minds and erase the stupidity that's in our heads. And I pray this morning, God, that you would erase the sin of this world and the perversion of this world and reset our minds to the Word of God and help us to understand as a people this morning what it means to be loved, what it means to love. And I pray, Lord, that as we leave here today, we leave here with our hearts heavy under conviction by your spirit, realizing how far we fall short. of loving you as we ought. And I pray that this church would be a church that one day when we stand before God, God would recognize and say, you folks did love me. You grew in my love and you love me more. And Lord, as a pastor, I long as as a Christian, I long to love you more. As a pastor, I long to be able to expound the breadth and length and depth and height of the love of Jesus Christ for God's people. And I pray that you'd help us, Lord, this morning to comprehend these things. Quick in our mind, Lord, the natural man cannot perceive this stuff. The natural man cannot get it. They're spiritually discerned. I pray, Holy Ghost of God, please open this stuff up and reveal it to your people. And for that one that's lost, Father, they desperately need the love of God. And I pray this morning that they'd find it. At the foot of the cross, they'd find what love really is. And I pray it in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen. Now, this is a popular subject in our modern-day churches. The subject of love, it's popular in the secular world. It's popular on your TV. It's popular in songs. It's the most abused, misunderstood, misapplied, perverted, twisted and misappropriated subject on the planet. People today do not truly understand what love really is. And like I said, when I was talking to God, I say it to you, our minds have been set by the world to think we know something about this subject. And it is so far from the Bible's definition that we're light years away from the truth. What we need this morning is to delete the foolishness that the world has told us. Delete what you've seen on TV. Delete what you've heard from politicians and rock stars and Hollywood stars. Delete everything you know and let God Almighty show you from the Bible what love really is. A Bible love will offend the sensitive, politically correct, sin-loving, pervert of this world. The Bible love is not exactly what you think it is. If all you do is judge what you believe and what you understand and what you know from the television or the news media or the college classrooms of our society. This subject is so loved and so talked about and so needed because true, genuine love is as necessary to your physical and spiritual, emotional, mental well-being as oxygen is to your flesh. True love is something every person longs not only to experience, but they long to give. How many lost people have you met that like to talk about how loving they are? I'm just a loving person. There's something inside of us that longs to be loved. Parents, your children need to know, they need to feel, they need to have it in their soul that my mama and my daddy love me. And if they feel that, they'll forgive you all kinds of foolishness. Because love covers a multitude of sin. This church needs to feel that Pastor Mike loves me. Because love will cover a multitude of sin. Amen. You'll put up with a lot of stupidity if you know what you love. Those little kids, when we put them in that nursery, ladies, My vision for that nursery is that that is where the ministry of Bible Believers Church starts, is with those infants and from the earliest possible memory. And I'm not exactly sure where that is. I know that's different for every individual. But I mean, before they even have a memory, my desire is that little spirit in there recognizes they are loved in this place. Your brothers and sisters in Christ need to know in this church their love. Oh, Sunday school kids, they need to know that they're loved by their teachers. But you know, beyond all that I've already mentioned, the lost world needs to recognize that Christians love them. They feel like all you are is some fire-breathing dragon who's there to tell them how wicked they are, and they are, and how they're going to burn in hell forever, and they will. They will turn you off if they sense that that's coming from a spirit of hatred, from a spirit of arrogance, from a spirit of self-righteousness. But listen, my friend, if they sense in your spirit that you care for their soul, they'll listen to you tell them about the damnation of eternal fire, and something inside them will draw them to the truth. if they know they're loved. It's a missing ingredient. Because in this day and age, we're right where Paul said we would be in a time when men were lovers of their own self. And that's the reason we don't know what real love is. We're covetous and selfish. But above and beyond this world, sensing and feeling our love for them in their lost soul. Above and beyond your brothers and sisters in Christ, sensing your love for each other. And above and beyond you feeling that your pastor loves you. Above and beyond all of that, the most important person on this planet, in the worldly scheme, in your worldly relationship, the most important person that ought to know your love is your spouse. That got real quiet. Now, you should see it from my perspective. You can watch it freeze up. You know what your spouse will do? They'll forgive you a lot of foolishness if they know you love them. I'm going to submit to you this morning that if we can learn a little bit about this subject of love, if we can understand the love of God, if we can grasp this concept than all other problems in our life, from beginning to end, will work out right. Jesus Christ said the greatest commandment, and He said the first and great commandment, is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. You know what Paul said the end of the commandment is? Charity. So the first and great commandment is that you learn to love God with everything that you are. With your entire being, learn to love God. And then the end of the commandment is charity. I don't really think there's any person in this room who's perfect in charity. You know what charity does? It makes a perfect Christian. I didn't say sinless, I said perfect. If you and I can learn to be charitable people, That is the greatest gift any Christian can have. Above and beyond the ability to walk through Mott's Children's Hospital and clean that mess out. Above and beyond the charismatic ability to heal. And we know that that's gone. But if we could get that gift today, Above and beyond that gift, a Christian should be charitable. And a charitable Christian is a more powerful Christian than any gift you can find in the New Testament. The Bible teaches it's the best gift. Paul said it's the end of the commandment. So if the beginning is loving God and the end is charity, what do you think happens to everything in between? It's a growth process. But you know where it has to start? It has to start in our hearts falling in love with Almighty God. You want to know why we don't have a whole bunch of charitable Christians today? Want to know why our churches are splitting and our homes are falling apart and our children grow up and don't want God? And all we do is bicker and fight and quarrel. And the average pastor now, I think it's shrunk. It used to be three years per church. Now it's down to 18 months or less. It takes a lifetime to build a work. Some of the things we talk about and dream about, it takes 20, and it takes 30, and it takes 40, and I was thinking this morning, and I'm praying for 60 years. I started at 30. 60 only makes me 90. Brother Pastor Chad was talking about that health nut, Greg, I think it is, and he said he's seen a thing of him at 105 still lifting weights. I said, wouldn't that be great? I mean, forget the weights. At 105, you'd still be preaching the gospel. It takes a lifetime to build something for God. It takes a lifetime. But the problem is, we don't have people committing to God and working throughout their life to grow in grace because we don't have people starting at the starting point, which is learning to love God. How many of you here today would say, I know I'm mature in my love for the Lord. We don't have one taker. I think that's a starting point, don't you? I want you to see three things in our text today. We're going to look at the choice of love. We're going to look at the commandment of love. And then we're going to end on a negative note, the consequences of love. First of all, the choice of love, look at verse 6. He says, set me, she says, set me as a seal upon thine heart. You know what that means? The responsibility is in the hand of the person who is to love. Love is a choice. You've been taught by Hollywood, love is something that just takes over your heart and my heart just ran away with me and all the pitter patters and all that foolishness, that's not love, it's lust. Love is a choice. I'm glad God chose to love me, aren't you? Keep your finger here in Solomon and let's go to John chapter number 3. John chapter number 3. If we're ever going to develop the right kind of love in our hearts and in our homes and in our church, we have to understand the love of God. John chapter number 3 and look at verse 14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Even so, must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. You know what God did? He chose to love the world. Do you ever think about why would God love me? Now, I'm not I'm not saying that from a worldly or a humanistic perspective. I'm saying it from a Bible perspective. I'm saying it from the perspective of there's none righteous, no, not one. for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." I'm talking about it from the perspective of Almighty God loving me. It's an astounding thought. Look at verse 14 in John 3. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Now, if you remember the story, the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness and they'd been sinning against God. So God sent serpents among them to bite them as a plague. And when the serpents were coming in and biting the people, the people were dying. And so God told Moses to put a serpent on a pole and to lift that pole up and everybody that would look to that pole would be healed of their bites and they would live. As Moses lifted up the serpent in this wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up. You know what God did? He set His love on the world. And the only way to save the world from eternal damnation in the lake of fire was for God to send His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect, spotless, sinless Lamb of God, to send His only Son to this world to become sin for us on the cross of Calvary. That we could look to Jesus on that cross and be healed of our sin. That's what He was doing on that cross. He was healing us. You know, God hasn't left this world without a witness. How many of you have seen the sign for medical help? It's a serpent on a pole. What do you know? I don't believe the Bible. Well, that's not my fault you're ignorant of it. You study that Bible and you see how it impacts the lost world that reject Jesus Christ. Those men hang that sign outside their office to make money and to tell people that they can heal them, and they don't know they're hanging a sign of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary to heal man of his sin. The reason you and I even need a doctor today is because of our sin. The reason you and I need to get medical help is because of our sin. It is sin that came into the world, and it was a sin that was our choice. Mankind chose to sin, and God chose to love them anyways. What an astounding thought. The first time the word love even shows up in your Bible, it is in reference to Abraham and his love for his son Isaac. The Lord told Abraham, take thy son, thine only son whom thou lovest, and take him up into that mountain and offer him for sacrifice unto me. It was a type of Jesus Christ. The very beginning point of love in the Bible is the love of a man for his son. You know what that's a type of? the love of God for the Lord Jesus Christ. God loved his son. And although God allowed Abraham to get right to the point of plunging the knife into his son and slaying his son, God Almighty did go so far as to slay his own son. His son Jesus Christ died under the wrath of God because God loved us. That's why. That's love. What an astounding thought. to think of Isaac and how he willingly laid down his life. There was no fight there. Abraham didn't have to beat him up and tie him up and throw him on the altar. Isaac laid down his life and laid there. You know what Abraham believed? Abraham said, God told me He was going to give you to me, so I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to kill you and God's going to raise you from the dead. He was following God all the way with faith in God. You know what God did? God slayed His only begotten Son. And God raised him from the dead for you and I. It's an amazing concept to think that he would become sin for you and me. You see, love is a choice. How do you explain Jesus Christ humbling Himself and becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross? How do you explain Almighty God being willing to crucify His own Son, being willing to pour out the vials of His eternal wrath on His perfect Son, just for you, other than love? That's love that's beyond comprehension. No man can replicate or copycat that kind of love. Turn to Romans chapter five. Romans chapter number five, I want you to see this verse. Look at verse number six. For when we were yet without strength, In due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet peradventure for a good man, some would even dare to die. But God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. For a good man, For your friend? For somebody who gave you a million bucks? For somebody who was always there for you? Some would dare. But for somebody who hates you? Somebody who spit on you? Somebody who mocked you? Somebody who beat you? You remember that Jesus Christ said, how he, no man taketh my life from me, I lay it down of myself? Friday night, those of you fellows that went with us to the meeting when the preacher was talking about how Jesus Christ was beaten for us. How they treated him and how the powers of hell attacked him and all that went on there. I started thinking about the fact that no man could have lived through that beating. Most men would die by the beating of the Roman soldiers. A cat of nine tails would actually rip and shred the tissues down to the point where, and I'm not trying to be disgusting, you all have TVs, so you'll be alright. You watch R-rated movies and you think it's cool when the blood splatters on the lens of the TV screen. 150 years ago, a preacher shouldn't talk like this. Nowadays, they need to. You see the guts and the intestines literally coming out as little strips and threads of skin or of tissue are holding some of it in, but others of it are bulging out. The Bible says his visage was more marred than any man. Nobody in the history of the world had ever been beaten as fiercely and as violently as Jesus Christ Proof that he was God proof that what he said was true. No man takes my life from me I'm not dying at the hand of your beating You're gonna nail me to that cross and you're not breaking my bones cuz song said no bone of him would be broken So before they come and break my legs, I'm giving up the ghost He shed his blood I believe there was no blood left in Jesus Christ when he died. A human couldn't survive that. All of that sinless, all of that perfect and all of the holy blood of God. You get your blood from your father. He got his from his father. He had perfect blood. All of that blood shed for you and I. What an amazing thought. To do that willingly for your enemies. But wait a minute, you know what's even more astounding than that? Giving your child for your enemies. And that's the love of God. Can I say something and please be gracious with me about this? I think I would kill for my kids. I really do. I really think I'd kill for my kids, but I can't imagine letting somebody kill my kids. And that's what God did for you and me. So when you start saying, oh, I love, I love, I love, put it on hold a minute and think about what real love is. Real love is a choice. My wife was repeating this story to her hairdresser about how we met. She started asking questions. You know how they do to try to get you talking. I hate it. I give them one word answers. How are you doing? All right. That's as far as I go, that's like one with a hyphen, so that's almost two, you know? And she started asking questions, and my wife started talking, and she said, well, how did you, not being from here, meet your husband? And she said, because she had told her she's from North Carolina, she said, well, I met him at Bible College. And she said, oh, really? She said, yeah. She was telling the story. She said, well, he saw me, and he wanted me. I said, is that really what she said? She said, yeah, that's what I said. I said, that's awesome. You know what love is? It's a choice. I saw her, and I wanted her. It's just that simple. I set my love on her. I told the fellas I'll never forget sitting in the cafeteria, and I looked down the table there, and there's this little stinking punk, just this little punk. I still can't stand him. If I saw him today, I'd probably wind up in jail. He's sitting down there, and he thought he was cool. He's from Ohio, you know. And he had this truck, a Ford Ranger, with flames on the side of it. And I'm preaching, I won't tell you what I called him, but I'll tell you fellas later. He had flames on the side of his truck. It's cool, you know. He's sitting down there, and I was telling him, the guys called me dad, because I was older when I went to college. I was 21, I think, or 22 when I went to college, and they all ran out of high school. So they called me dad. They used to fly around and call me dad. It's just kind of a joke. They're sitting there saying, oh, look, Dad, he's got your girl. And I said, you guys just wait. He'll mess it up, and I'll come in and clean it up. You just watch. You just watch. You watch. I said, you watch. They're all laughing. I said, you laugh? I'm serious, man. I was getting mad. You laugh? You watch. That one's mine. Amen. I set my lung on her. I walked into chapel. I told the girl that had been sitting with us in chapel. I couldn't stand her. I hope she never watches these things. I honestly couldn't, I couldn't stand her. She's just one of them loud mouth girls that just drive me up a wall, man. Just drive me crazy. I'm from Detroit. You're not from Detroit. You're from Pontiac. You say Detroit, you say Pontiac. Oh, you're from South Lyon. No, you don't say South Lyon. You say I'm from Detroit. Oh, you're from Detroit. Oh, that's cool. It's all burned down. That's sweet, man. That's like third world stuff, man. I'm from Detroit. And she's sitting there, and I put up with her. I really just put up with her. And she walked by in chapel. I'm going to get killed later for this, but that's all right. I don't care. She walked by in chapel. And I looked at her, and I said, man, that is the hottest girl on this campus. And she said, I know her. I said, who's that? Say that again. She said, I know her. I said, you do? How do you know? She said, we went to Highlands together. I said, I want her right here next chapel. She said, you got it. I went back. Oh, God. Oh, God. You know what, Amanda? Find us a place. Find us a good thing. And obtain his favor. I said, help me out, Lord. Let the big mouth come through for once. And you know what happened? I walked into chapel the next time, and she was sitting in my seat. And I walked up, and I said, hey, you're in my seat. She said, go find another one. Did that run you off? Oh, no, brother. I said, that's the one for me. Amen. She's pretty and she's tough. I like it. Amen. I said, fine. She said, no, no, no. I'm just kidding. Screw you over. You know what? That was it. The rest is history. I think one or two days after that, we didn't see each other. We were just getting started. And the first time we sat and talked was on a Saturday. And we talked for eight hours. I set my love on her. God set His love on you. Some of you are here this morning and you're running from that love. Some of you are here this morning and you're rejecting that love. Some of you are here this morning and you're on your way to a devil's hell and there's absolutely no reason for it because God Almighty has set His love on you. You just don't know anything about it. Not only did He set His love on us, but He sealed us. Look at that. Set me as a seal upon thine heart and as a seal upon thine arm. You know what I am? I'm sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise since I got saved. You know what you said to your wife when you married her? Till death do us part. For better or for worse, in richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, cleave the only unto her so long as you both still live. I will. You sworn over. You said, I will love that girl till I die. Did you lie? God loves you, you filthy sinner. Preacher, she ain't like she used to be. So what? You ain't either. The chest has dropped into the drawers. Amen. Amen. And it's true. Hey! Hold the phone here. We're supposed to be getting help, not hurt. Pastor Priestson, they got divorced. You set your love on her. That thing's supposed to be sealed up, brother. Aren't you glad God loved you enough to seal you till death? Aren't you glad God loves you enough, no matter what you do, no matter how bad you've treated Him, no matter how days you've gone on and on and on in your life, ignoring His very existence as He puts breath in your lungs, as He blesses you, as He feeds you, as He gives you a family, as He keeps you safe, you go day after day loving TV shows, loving sleep, loving all kinds of godless things more than you love God! when you got saved. How many of you guys think it would go really good for your marriage if you refused to admit in public that she was yours? Walk into a restaurant. Hey, honey, go sit over there. We're going on a date. Yeah, I need two separate tables, please. Think that'll work for you? Is that your wife? No. Who? You know, we are a shame to God. He ain't going to deny you, but you deny Him. God sealed us. Notice, love over there is sealed on thine arm. The arm shows the strength of God. And the heart shows the seed of His emotions. That God would love me. That He would choose. He didn't have to. He chose to. What a powerful thought. Look at the commandment of love in verse 6. Set me. That's an order. That's an order. Deuteronomy 6, 5, God commands His people to love the Lord their God. You know what Jesus did? Jesus obeyed that commandment. He proved it by laying down His very life for His Father's will. That is why Jesus died for you. Remember, friends, remember, God sent His Son because God loved you, but Jesus laid down His life because Jesus loved his father. He said, not my will, but thine be done. Jesus was in the flesh. His will was to please the father. But he said, Father, if there's any way that my will can be seen, if there's any way around this, God, if there's another way to save people from their sins, if there's another way to atone for the wickedness of mankind, if there's another way of escape from a devil's hell, let it be known. God, please find another way. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done, all of eternity, bowed his knee before God and said, God, please! But if there's no other way, I'll do Your will." Because Jesus obeyed the commandment. Jesus loved His Father. If He did it, why don't we? I mean, you already admitted at the beginning that you know you're not made perfect in your love for God. Why not? Jesus commanded us to love Him. In Matthew 22, I mentioned this at the beginning of the message, the first and great commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. You know what most people love? Everything but God. Many people love their family. That's great. But it's not right if your love for God isn't first. You see, families, listen to me. When you love the children more than you love the spouse, you're out of God's will. Very bold and direct thing to say, I know. You are out of God's will to love your kids more than you love your husband. You ever see women that treat the dog better than they treat their old man? A little stupid little dog, man. Wouldn't make a halfway decent meal. I love your little food. What are you doing, jerk? Something's wrong. Something's all out of balance. But that's the way we are when we love people and we love our family and we ignore God. Sir, the same goes for you. You can love your hunting, you can love your fishing, you can love whatever your own personal leisure time more than you love your wife, love yourself more than you love your wife. You're out of God's will. We've been commanded to love God first. We've been commanded to love Him so much that the love we have for our family looks like hate. You see the passages where God tells you to love your wife as Christ loved the church? To love your children, ladies? The Bible actually instructs mothers to love their children. You've got a love commanded by God for your family. And then Jesus said, if any man come after me and hate not. Hate? Yeah, hate not. Father, mother, wife, sisters, brothers, children, for my name's sake, you cannot meet my disciples. Was Jesus telling us to hate our families? Oh, that's an unfortunate rendering. That's the problem. That's a faulty translation. No. Hate, when you look up the definition of it, is not always desiring somebody to die, no matter how many times you tell your children that that's what it means. When you look up the Bible definition for hate, hate actually can be a much smaller love, a love that's so small that it pales in significance when compared to a greater love. The love that we have for God ought to be so great that the love we have for our very flesh and our very blood ought to pale in significance to our love for God. So, if God calls your children to go to Africa, you ought to say, goodbye. If God calls one of your boys to preach and wants to send him to California, or he wants to send him to Papua New Guinea, or he wants to send him to the Philippines, or he wants to send him to China, or he wants to send him to the Ukraine, you ought to stand there and wave to the grandbabies, and wave to the son, and wave to the daughter-in-law, and say, you go where God tells you to go, you do what God tells you to do, I raised you for God, you're not mine, you're God's! You do what God says. You see, what else this does is it takes away our excuses. Well, I didn't go to church last week because my husband didn't let me. I didn't go to church last week because the wife didn't want to. Fine, stay home. I'm going. I'm going to get the silent treatment for a month. Good. Get an iPod. It'll be real noisy all the time. Amen. But do right. no matter what the other person's doing. You see, some of you men need to get a grip on understanding what submission is. Submission is not beating down the other person until they submit. This isn't MMA. Amen. You can't get your wife to submit by a submission grip and thinking that you've got your house under control. Very, very faulty perspective a lot of the Bible believers have propagated. You are not responsible for her decisions. She is responsible to submit to her husband, like the Bible told her to be. And if she doesn't, what are you going to do? Beat her up? You'll go to jail. You deserve it. You just do right, whether she submits or not. And pray for her. And what if she fights me? I don't let her fight. Do right. Well, my husband just won't get with the program and he wants me to drink with him and he wants me to do this with him and that with him. And my husband just forget about it. I'm supposed to submit to him. We ought to obey God rather than men. You obey God. You do what God said. You submit to your husband in every single possible way under the sun that you can until he tells you to do something that goes against the Bible. And then you obey God and you let God figure the mess out. Your love for Jesus Christ ought to make everything else pale in significance. There are no excuses. There are no excuses. Jesus commanded it and Jesus obeyed it. I want you to finally see the consequences of love. Now this is where we're going to get into some things that's going to mess your mind up a little bit. Because Bible love is different from what you've heard preached. Watch. For love is as strong as death. Why would God compare love to something like death? Jealousy is cruel as the grave. Does that give you warm fuzzies in your belly? Not even a little bit. The coals thereof are coals of fire that hath a most vehement flame. When you choose to love somebody or somebody chooses to love you, there's consequences associated with love. Love and charity are not the same thing. Just to make sure I was right, I ran all the references in the Bible on charity and every time they're in reference to the Christian brothers and how Christian brothers are supposed to treat their Christian brothers. It's never in reference to God and his love. It's a fruit of the spirit, absolutely. It's something that comes out in a Christian's walk and in a Christian's life, but it's not love, it's different. Love can be very jealous. She's just so jealous all the time. Good. It means she loves you. My husband's just so jealous. Well, quit flirting with everybody and he wouldn't be so jealous. Amen. Amen. It's not wrong to be jealous. Grace and I have had people make fun of us for being jealous. One of the same couples that used to make fun of us for being jealous, their marriage is on the rocks right now, and they're about done, and they probably aren't going to make it. I'm jealous. It's my wife. I love her. If you're not jealous over your spouse, you don't love them. Love is as strong as death. How many men have died for this country? How many 17, 18, 19, and 20-year-old young men have had their lives cut short for the USA? You know what it is? It's love. Some of you parents in here think you wouldn't even have to think twice before jumping in front of a bus for your kids. You wouldn't even think about it. You panic. I got four girls, and I've never been a sissy. I've always been a tough guy. Blood has never bothered me. I've watched a guy tear his thumbnail off with a hammer, and I laughed at him. It's terrible. It's horrible. Horrible. I got four girls now. And one of them goes, I go, Grace, don't say that. I can't take their blood. I mean, I. Those are my kids. I don't think for two seconds if I saw something going to hurt my kids, I don't think I'd even have to think about it. I think I'd be right in the way. Because I love them. Love is strong. Love is jealous and love is fiery. The coals thereof are coals of fire that hath a most vehement flame. Now. God loves you, doesn't he? God is love, isn't he? Preachers are supposed to preach the love of God, aren't they? So is the preacher preaching the love of God if he leaves out jealousy and fire and strength that's as strong as death? God loves me. So glad God loves me. Are you really? There's consequences to the love of God, folks. God's jealous for his son. God expects something of his people. There's fury in the anger and in the wrath of a father. You mess with my kid, boy, I'll tell you what. I get around little boys. Some friends of ours have lots of little boys and they're rough and rambunctious. And that is fine. I would tie into all four of them and have a massive wrestling match that could kick me and punch me and I think it's cute and fun. When one of those little boys looks sideways at one of my girls and I can read that face. It's a book. It tells a big story. Man, I never thought I'd feel like just whack in the head of a stinking seven-year-old kid, but that's my girl. An angry father can get furious. You know what God did? He sent his son. He sent his, and I've never kicked a little kid in the face, so relax. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I would trip them when their parents weren't looking, that's about it. You know what God sent his son? He sent his son, Jesus Christ. You know what people do? Don't need Jesus, I got my religion. I don't need Jesus. I know this and I know that and I know the other. I understand science. I don't need God. I don't need that religious crutch. I don't need a Bible to tell me what to do. I don't need any of that. And you know what it does? It infuriates a jealous and angry father. I said it infuriates a jealous and an angry father who loves you. And you say I'm not humbling myself to come to Jesus. I'm not humbling myself to serve Jesus, Christian. I'm not humbling myself to go so far as to be considered a weirdo and a wacko. I'm not humbling myself and taking the chance on God calling me to a mission field. I've got too much to lose. I'm not giving God a blank slate. And it infuriates his Father. They say, can a believer experience the anger of God? The Bible says if you don't suffer chastisement, then you're a bastard and not a son. And that's a Bible quote. Verbatim. So, yes, a believer can experience the anger and the judgment of God. By not loving his son. That's a scary thought. Especially since we asked if we're all made perfect in our love for God this morning. Oops. You see, there's consequences associated with love. Till death do us part, for better or worse, for richer or poorer. You wake up the next morning and all the makeup's gone. And the dentures fell out while she was sleeping. And you look and you say, stuck. There's consequences. You know what people say? Well, I don't want to commit to being a Christian because I just don't want to be a hypocrite. I don't want to give up my life of sin. They never say it that way. But that's what they mean. I don't want to give up the things I enjoy doing. I like having a beer every now and then. I enjoy ripping people off to make a little extra money. I like my lying. I like my pornography. I like my womanizing. I like my sin. I'm just enjoying my sin too much. That's what they're actually saying. They turn away from the love of God. You know what they're in line for? They're in line for the furious hand of God's judgment. It's weird to me, it says that love is as strong as death. It talks about the strength of love. You guys realize how powerful God is? The more you study the power of God, the more you realize you have no earthly idea how powerful He is. Listen to this. That sun that's shining out there and giving so much light to this earth right now. Man, it felt good driving here this morning. The sun was just beaming on the side of my face. I love the warmth of the sun. That sunshine, that sun you look at. I looked out my window as I was driving, and I tried to look right at it. while I'm driving, don't do that. Dumb. And I was thinking about the message and I looked at that sun, man, that's bright. Do you know one million earths can fit inside the sun you look at? You put the earth next to the sun and it looks like a period at the end of a sentence. It's hysterical how tough men think they are. how smart we think we are. Well, we've learned modern science is seen in this modern age and blah, blah, blah, blah, and God hears ee-haw, ee-haw, ee-haw, ee-haw. You'll laugh, but it's serious, man. I'm not kidding you. Well, we see and we can see in observable space and blah, blah, blah. They don't have a clue what they're talking about. You realize the sun is one of the medium-sized, it's a nothing star in the universe. It's nothing. There are stars out there that are many times bigger than the sun. The largest one that the scientists know of could fit 900 to 1,050 suns within a linear circumference, not packed inside, but in a line. from the center to the circumference of the sun. Our sun into some of the bigger stars in space. The speed of light, 180,000 miles per second. The speed of light would rotate the earth seven times in a second. You know how long they say it would take a photon to travel the observable universe if it were static in size? If the universe is not expanding, which scientists say it is. If it were static and not moving. It would take one photon traveling at the speed of light, 180,000 miles per second. It would take it 26 billion years. Are you hearing me? To travel observable space. Problem is, it's expanding. They're right about that. How do you know they're right about that, preacher? I know they're right about that because the Bible says He stretches the heavens. That's before you even get to heaven where God dwells. And this is the God who said when it came to the stars and He wanted to explain it to you, it said He made the stars also. Oh, yeah, the stars. That's His power. You realize there's enzymes that travel up and down the human DNA strand created by God that look for damaged spots in a strand of your DNA. And when they hit those spots, they'll stop and they'll repair that spot and they'll start moving again. The energy of the sun. I'm sorry, 500 tons of matter per second coming off the surface of that sun. The hottest spot in the sun is 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. I can't understand that kind of heat. With 500 tons of matter a second, you know what, it's exploding. It's a nuclear explosion. And that sun warms me, causes the grass to grow, causes the flowers to bloom. A billion cities, a billion cities on this planet, major cities, from the time of Adam till the present, cannot produce the amount of energy the sun can produce in one minute. Don't forget, it's one of the insignificant stars. And it gives us life. You know what you have when you see that sun come up in the morning? You see those flowers bloom and those vegetables grow. You have the love of God expressed. to a bunch of sinful people. But you know what you got when you get up close to that thing? The awesome, majestic, furious energy and power of God from His spoken Word. That's amazing. But you want to know something? It's nothing Compared to the fury, the fury of God's wrath poured out on your soul for eternity. Because the sun is God's wrath controlled. Storms throughout your Bible are a type of the judgment of God and the anger of God. One lightning bolt of God's finger. They say it's hotter than the surface, can be hotter than the surface of the sun. And that's just nothing. And He says those who reject My Son, those whose names are not written in the Lamb's Book of Life, are going to experience the vials of the wrath Almighty God poured out on their soul for eternity because love is strong as the grave and jealousy is as cruel as death. Hey, God's jealous. God's anger. God's wrath is strong. It's furious. It's cruel for all of eternity. Oh, I just can't see how God would do something like that. Then you're a hypocrite. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just trying to get you to think that you're a hypocrite. Because when I talk about the love of Jesus Christ, when I talk about the love of God, everybody shakes their head, and everybody waves their hands, and little tears come to the eye, praising God for how wonderful His love is. When I talk about Jesus being willing to be crucified, and slain, and suffer the damnation of our hell for eternity, everybody says, praise God, that's wonderful. When I talk about the wrath of God poured out on a lost soul that rejected Jesus Forever! People say, how could he? If you believe everything else about him and his love, why would you reject what real love is? Even when you can see real love in your own life. You passionately love your children. You passionately love your wife. You passionately love yourself. You want to know why some men never come to Christ? I've preached in the streets all up and down. Well, thank God of this country. It's been exciting. And I go to the cities when I want to preach in the street. I couldn't care less to preach in the street in the country. The corn waves at me in the wind. It's annoying. I like to go to the city. I like to find somewhere some trouble, stir it up. And I've talked to men who used to be doctors, who used to be lawyers, who used to be married. Men who have grandchildren, I can remember one fellow just a little bit taller than me, a blonde-haired guy, probably in his early 50s, and he was telling me he used to be a lawyer. He was so drunk he couldn't hardly stand up. Stunk to high heaven, puke on the front of his shirt. You want to know what brought that man to that point? A very strong and a very cruel love. His love for pleasure. His love for his self. His love for the liquor. You've heard the stories of the drug addicts who will do anything for drugs. They'll steal from their own mother. They'll steal from their grandmother. They'll reject and deny their family. They'll steal food from their own kids' mouths by taking the family money to go buy drugs. Oh, drugs are horrible. No, men's love is horrible. Because I know men that beat the drugs. It's not the power of the drug. It's not the power of the liquor. It's not the power of a fornication. It's not the power of the sin. It's the power of love in the soul of a man for his own pleasure that destroys his life. But Christians, it's the power of our love for God. that can get us to the end of the commandment, which is charity. Bow your heads for prayer, if you would, please. God already loved the world. The love is over. You want the love of God now, you've got to deal with it in Jesus Christ. You find God's love at the foot of the cross of Calvary, or you don't find it at all. Christian, you find your love for God and your relationship with God in His Son, Jesus Christ. Father, I ask you to help your people to get down here this morning and just dedicate their hearts, their minds, their souls to you again, to love you as we are. And Lord, if there's anybody here that's lost, please, help them to step out. On the first verse, Lord, help them to step right out and to come get in the love of God before they experience His wrath. I pray it in Jesus' name. Stand to your feet with your heads bowed and your eyes closed. If God dealt with your heart, why don't you come right...