Jeremiah 31:3 The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love… I. A REVELATION HAS BEEN MADE TO US OF DIVINE TRUTH. In a strange land, when the shadows of evening come on, the traveller has sometimes the consciousness that he is passing through the fairest scenes, he instinctively feels that the darkness is hiding from him the most wonderful revelations of nature. So we sometimes feel that we are in the presence of great truths, that have yet to be revealed to us. We feel, long before we understand. Our hearts burn within us, when we listen to words, the full meaning of which we do not comprehend. How strange it is, that when we have listened to the words of truth, we sometimes feel as if visions we had dimly seen were realised, or our confused thoughts were put into shape, and expressed in words, as if this was what we had heard before, or were on the point of thinking out for ourselves. Truth seems like the language of childhood, as if we were familiar with its tones, and had lived a former life, where we had heard its voice before. The heart recognises it as Divine. II. WE HAVE NEW REVELATIONS OF AN OLD TRUTH. With every Divine appearance came a revelation. He who appeared of old to the Church breathing words of love, hath in these last days spoken unto us. That last appearance was the most perfect expression of love, that last revelation left nothing unsaid that even Divine love could say. How much has love said in this world — how much it says to you this day. You have not found out yet the depth, the full significance of its revelations. You know something, you may know far more. The more you love, the more you will be capacitated for manifestations of love. We need new, constant assurances of the Divine love. We cannot live in the past alone. Do you ask why are new revelations necessary? Why is it not enough to be told once that God loves us? Why must we be told again and again? I answer, we should require assurances of love from a friend if we felt that our affinities with his pure nature were anything but entire, that we often pained him by our recklessness, and prevented his intercourse with us by our indifference; and surely, with all my frailties and sins, with the deep consciousness of my unworthiness, I need God to tell me that He loves me, and I want Him to repeat the assurance. There is, moreover, a peculiar sensitiveness about love; it craves for fresh utterances, for strong, unequivocal assertions, just as Jonathan caused David to swear again, because he loved him as his own soul; so the love of God is so essential to us that we cannot live without it, we prize it above all things, and hence we long to hear, in the depths of our souls, the words, "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love." III. THE LOVE OF GOD IS EVER NEW. It is an everlasting love. God loved you long before you realised His love. You have, perhaps, sometimes thought that He loved you because you loved Him; it is quite the reverse; you love Him because He first loved you. God will still love through all changes — in sorrow, in sickness, in old age, in death. God will love us for ever. His loves is always fresh; it is the same to-day as yesterday, and to-morrow it will be as to-day. IV. IT IS GOD'S LOVE THAT ATTRACTS MEN. This love draws. Men yield to this Divine power. This is the power of the Gospel; this subdued, this won you. What melted that heart of ice, — what, but the warm breath of love? What drew you, but the cords of love that were entwined about your heart! (H. J. Bevis.) Parallel Verses KJV: The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. |
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