The Love of God (Part 4) – Why Did God So Love the World?

He wants to have a people who obey the first commandment. Now the Lord is saying that if you do this, all the rest are insignificant. On this one hangs all the law and all the prophets. That’s incredible. The Lord would have a bride for Himself.

Did you ever read Ezekiel 16, all of it? How many of you read all of Ezekiel 16? You have some impression of what God had. I talked to you about the problem He had. I talked to you the other night and said, ” If there’s a really good man and a handsome man, does he deserve a beautiful wife? And a pure wife? Did Adam deserve Eve? Did Abraham deserve Sarah? Did Isaac deserve Rebekah?

Does God deserve a beautiful counterpart? Does He deserve a pure woman? Did He select her? Did He fall in love with her? Why did He fall in love with her? Because He loved her. Now, is that true? Are we on scriptural grounds there? We read it in the Bible. He fell in love with her because He loved her. Why does a man love a woman? Because he fell in love with her. Did he intend to? No. Did he plan to? No. He just fell in love with her.

And what did Israel do? What did this beautiful girl, this lovely girl do? She turned to other lovers. She even took the gold and the silver that enhanced her beauty, and what did she do with it? She made idols and gave them to others that she loved. God beheld it with His own eyes. He watched the drama unfold. He watched her turn away from Him, did He not? He saw it. He felt it. His heart broke over it. He watched Israel, which was a picture for us, a type for us, going into unmentionable things. Physical, yes, but brothers, the first night, will everybody please remember that no one will understand what I am saying. I won’t understand what I am saying because I have to employ human words to express a divine thing.

Nonetheless, what was happening between God and Israel was primarily spiritual. Even though it was physical, it was primarily spiritual. I’ve been tempted to take two or three ugly nights and talk about what Israel did and go through all the verses. She went back and had commerce with Egypt. She went back and had relationships with Babylon, out of whom she came. She picked up the ways of those whom God saved her from. I had thought about mentioning things like that in relation to the 20th and 21st centuries, and then I said to myself, no, Gene Edwards, you are going to stick with the truth and not with a lie.

I give you the truth. God watched that thing. He watched it happen. He watched the immorality. He watched the turning away from Him. Who did Israel turn away from? She turned away from the most beautiful, capable, attractive lover of all time. Israel, rather than marrying God…and that’s what God said, that I would make you My bride. She actually chose between fallen man and God…and chose fallen man.

Now I come to a point of feeling helpless, because I have to move from pictures to reality. How can I do it? First, I want you to know that God is still here. Man is no longer what he was, but he has fallen. This thing right here has been greatly damaged. The flesh…the body God gave Adam is no longer the body; it is the flesh. This creature, whom He once would have had as His counterpart, has fallen so low. A gloom covers the entire planet.

Brothers and sisters, has God ceased loving? Did God cease loving Israel when she fell into sin? God did something opposite of what a man would do. What would a man do who had done all that God had done for Israel if he had seen her turn away? He would have rejected her. God chastised her, but then, having chastised her, He said, I can’t do this anymore. You will yet be Mine. God’s passion kept on driving Him. He still loved.

Now we come to reality. I want to ask you a question. The last thing we see in the Old Testament is Israel, a fallen woman whom God says He will still love and make His own. I ask again, does He deserve a pure woman, a beautiful woman? He surely does. But Israel, our last glimpse of her, is not too good.

Where will God get His real bride? Out of Himself, yes, but not totally, because He is Spirit. Sister, remember the first night we said something about God being limited in that sense. He could not have a counterpart being spirit. He wasn’t divisible as spirit. Where would God get His bride?

One day His eyes fell on something, and His eyes took it all in. He could see it—fallen, sinful…but the passion was there. He would go to no end, to no limitation, to have His bride. He looked at something and beheld it, and a passion burned in Him. A love burned in Him. What was it? For God so loved the world. For God so loved me.

Where could He get a bride except out of fallen man? He would get her from where there was not one creature who had survived the fall. It was from the world that He would get her. He would go into the streets of sin…the world. Do you know what this means? The world. What is the world? It is an illegal marriage, an improper marriage. The righteous, holy, pure God had but one place to go and get a bride. Where is it? The world.