At the Cross is the Love of God

Now listen, the book of Revelation says she made herself ready. Most people construe that verse to mean that she made herself holy, because it mentions her garment in that passage. That is not what it says. It says that she made herself ready. That’s all it said. My strong impression is that she made herself ready by having become like Him. Now, I want someone in this room to stand up and, in one short sentence, tell me how you become like the Lord Jesus Christ.

By seeing Him. By seeing Him. I tell you, I got a new task, and that is for the rest of my life, all I’m going to do…I will tell you this now so you can get prepared for this: to show people Jesus Christ. All the world personally needs is to see Jesus. Alright, you’re going to have to see Him today…And His wife is like Him. I did not say she must be like Him. I’ll tell you, brothers, if she sees Him and if she loves Him, she will be like Him. She can’t keep from it. I believe that.

The Lord’s wife does not have to be scoured and browbeaten to become like her groom. All she needs to do is see Him. I tell you this: that beating inside the breast of that one called Jesus is a passionate God, and beating inside that one called Jesus was a passionate man, under obedience to the Father, but also very much in love, looking for a bride.

Well, I’ll tell you, I’ll put it this way: Jesus Christ was under dual love. Would some of you brothers do me a favor, someday, when all the messages on the Lord’s love are made available to you? Will you spend about five years of your life passionately loving the Lord, reading the Bible, getting to know Him, understanding these messages, and then proclaim His love to the world and do about a hundred times better a job than I’m doing right now? What I have to say has never been said before, but once it’s said, it ought to be clear, more clearly understood by people who are smarter than I am. Brothers, you’ll be able to make it clearer what I’m talking about this morning.

Jesus Christ…do me that favor, would you? Jesus Christ was under dual love. What was that love? He was being loved by the Father, and He was in love with the church. He was looking for a woman to be His wife. Well, you know, throughout His life, the Lord carried a cross, but only once was He crucified. I have said to you frequently that if you bear the Lord’s cross, the Lord will give you honor. Do you know what that honor is? Someday, He will honor you with the crucifixion. You’ll get crucified.

The Lord bore the cross throughout the 33 years, and He was crucified. They found no fault in Him, and they crucified Him. As sisters and brothers, don’t be too impressed by the fact that He was God this morning, would you? Would you look at Him in His manhood rather than His deity? Please say two words this morning. One is obedience, and one is love. And I’d like to place another thought out there in front of you, and that word is sovereignty.

God was loving Christ, and Christ was loving the church, His bride. I’ll call it His wife. The Lord was returning obedience to the Father. The Father was giving love; the Lord was returning obedience, and He was at the same moment giving out love. I also have to add that the Lord was loving the Father. He was loving the Father for what the Father was doing in His life.

This is an absolutely incomprehensible thing. Please look at it, for there are only three divine creatures in the universe, and one of them is sitting here at my feet. And I’m sorry, it’s mine. But truly, one of those divine creatures is sitting here at my feet, learning the ways of divinity. There is the way of divinity, and the only way you can see it…the conduct of divinity is seen in Jesus Christ. Okay, the Lord was human, and God brought Him one day to be crucified. And previous to the crucifixion, for about 48 hours…what the Roman Catholics call His passion…previous to His death was His suffering.

Jesus, the second divine creature, suffered and went to the cross and was crucified. What was His attitude during the suffering? Alright, I will accept silence. Submission, joy. Take all those words, obedient, submission, joy, and crown them with one word. Jesus Christ took the suffering in an act of passion. There’s a post. Imagine a man standing up by it, his arms wrapped around it, and his wrists tied, imagining their whipped scars. I want you to know that most people who go through that resent, fear, or have no thought except their own discomfort. But Jesus Christ stood there while absolutely no one in the universe knew it. No one cared what His attitude was. No one gave roses to Him for His attitude that day. But the Father knew.

If I could have seen His face, now God forgive me for what I’m about to say, but I don’t really know how to say it, so I’ll say it this way. If I could have seen His face, and if it had not been on His face, if I could have felt His heart, I would have seen…I would have known…and I would have felt the Lord accepting that suffering with a love being expressed within His being. A love passionate. If I speak of God, I say then like the divine love that was pinned up in God for all eternity that wanted out, with all the power of the Godhead behind it. If I speak of a man, then I have to say with a love as intense as the love a man is pouring out in hot passion upon the woman he loves.

Jesus Christ took the suffering, not from the hand of a Roman soldier, but He took that suffering from the hand of God and interpreted it as an expression of God’s passionate love for Him, and He received it with a passionate love for her. I’d like you to go back and feel that one more time. His back was there, lay bare, and He was being whipped unjustly, illegally, unmercifully, without cause. His attitude was one of complete abandonment of an expression of love.

My Lord could see divinely. My God, my Lord Jesus, had divine eyes. He could see something. Please listen. He could see that every act of God toward Him was an act of love. But He could see more than that. Please listen. He could see that every act toward Him was from God. Now put those together. He could see that every act toward Him was from God. And He could see that every act toward Him was an expression of God’s passionate love for Him.