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The Greatest Love Story • Feb 15th 1973

The Love of God (Part 2) – The Greatest Love Story Ever Told

Eternal Purpose Gene's Messages to the Church in Isla Vista, CA Old Testament

What is the love of God really like? In this powerful Bible teaching, Gene Edwards explores the love of God as the greatest love story ever told—a story that begins with God’s eternal desire, passes through creation and the fall of man, and unfolds into His pursuit of a bride.

Drawing from Genesis, Deuteronomy, Hosea, and Ezekiel, Gene traces a remarkable theme throughout the Old Testament: God does not merely command His people to love Him. He loves, pursues, restores, and longs for a people who will belong wholly to Him.

From Adam hiding from God in the Garden of Eden to the moving words of Hosea—“How can I give you up?”—Scripture reveals the heart of a God whose love is deeply personal.

Gene presents creation from an unusual perspective: God desired a counterpart, someone who could know Him, love Him, understand Him, and share His life. Man was created in God’s image with a desire for God. But with the fall, that relationship was shattered.

What followed is the greatest love story of all time.

God did not abandon His purpose. He went after the bride He had lost, even though winning her back would come at a terrible price. The biblical story of redemption becomes not merely the rescue of fallen humanity, but the unfolding story of God’s relentless love.

This message invites Christians and seekers alike to see Scripture from a larger perspective and to discover the eternal purpose behind God’s relationship with humanity.

SCRIPTURES DISCUSSED:
Genesis 3
Deuteronomy 6, 7 & 11
Hosea 1, 2, 6, 9, 11 & 14
Ezekiel 16

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Okay, we have to remember something: no place in the New Testament can we begin and get the full picture of anything; we have to go to the Old Testament first. It’s Ezekiel 16: 6-17.

I’m going to tell you just a little bit about the passage. Here’s what it says. It says that God was walking by one day, and He saw a baby thrown out into the field, naked, with blood all over it. The little child was a girl. Her mother was a Hittite. The father was an Amorite. Both of these are abominable, abominable races of people. Both of them belonged to the race of the old man. There was the little baby covered in blood, the cord not cut, and about to die. And God walked by and saved the life of the little baby. He raised the baby up, and cared for it, protected it from his enemies…and it was ugly, and no one cared for it. No one was interested in it. And no one loved it. But God loved it.

The baby grew up, and God said, I took care of you through everything. I gave you the clothes you wear. The house you live in. The food you eat. But when you grew up, it turned out that you were beautiful. It came time that you were old enough to marry, and I wished to marry you. Instead, you committed a terrible sin with Egypt. And then with another and another and another and another.

The one whom God had picked out of the dirt, wanted by no one, hated by everyone, God brought up…and lost. But she…when she was grown and became beautiful, she turned away and became a fallen, sinful woman. Do you know what her name was? Her name was not Israel. What was her name? She had the most beautiful name in the universe. Her name was

Jerusalem.

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