their cooling juice, their delicious sweetness; but how powerless will be his oration, compared with your vivid remembrance, if you have yourself partaken of the dainties of his land. It is even so with the good things of God; describe them as we may, we cannot awaken in you the joy and delight that is felt by the man who lives on them, who makes them his daily food, his manna from heavens, and his water from the rock. It is feeling, it is tasting, it is actually receiving and enjoying, which is, after all, the highest oratory with which we can possibly explain to you the sweet and precious things of God,
3. Now, do you not see that John could especially speak with power, for he spoke from his own experience. And do you not perceive that his language cannot be understood, except we put ourselves in his place, and are able to echo his words, when he said, “We have known and believed the love that God has for us?” There are many here, I do not doubt, who can join in this declaration of the apostle, And may the Holy Spirit help me, while I endeavour to draw out an expression of grateful thanks from those who have believed and known the love which God has for them.
4. First, then, I shall look upon my text as being an abstract of Christian experience; secondly, I shall view it as the summary of Christian testimony; and after that, I shall regard it as the foundation of Christian encouragement.
5. I. First of all, we have before us here THE ABSTRACT OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. Some will demur to this. If you should bring some Christians up and say, “Come now, just tell us in a few words what you think of the Christian life”; they would begin with a deep fetched groan, and then with the slightest possible allusion to mercy they would pass on to describe their continual exercises of soul, their deep afflictions, their desperate adversities, and their tremendous corruptions, and then they would end with another groan. But I think the healthy Christian, if he is asked this question, — “Now can you possibly give in one short sentence a statement of your Christian experience?” would come forward joyously, and say, “I will say nothing about myself, but I will speak for the honour of my God, and I am sweetly constrained to affirm, that ‘I have known and have believed the love that God has for me.’ ” That would be his abstract of experience, and the very best I am sure that any child of God can present. It is true that we have our trials, but it is just as true that we are delivered out of them. It is true that we have our corruptions, and mournfully do we know this to be the fact; but it is just as true that we have an all sufficient Saviour, who overcomes these corruptions, and enables us to tread the dragon beneath our feet. In looking back we dare not say that we have not passed the den of leopards. It would be wrong if we were to deny that we have floundered through the slough of despond, and have crept along the valley of humiliation, but we can say we have been through them; we have not remained in them; we have not left our bones bleaching in the burning sun, nor our bodies to be the prey of the lion. Our sorrows have been the heralds of mercies. Our griefs cannot mar the melody of our praise, for we consider them to be the deep bass notes of our song. The deeper our troubles the louder our thanks to God, who has assuredly led his servants through all and has preserved us until now. Our past troubles are no disturbers of our happy worship; they only swell the stream of our grateful affection. We put down all our trials into the account, but still we declare our one uncontradicted avowal, that “we have known and believed the love that God has for us.”
6. You will observe the distinction which the apostle makes. I may not be able to clearly bring it out, but it struck my mind as being a very beautiful description of the Christians twofold experience. Sometimes he knows the love that God has for him, and at other times he believes it. There is a difference here: I hope I shall be able to make it plain.
7. 1. Sometimes the Christian knows the love of God for him. I will mention two or three particular ways in which he knows it.
8. Sometimes he knows it by seeing it. He goes to his house and he finds it stocked with plenty — “his bread is given to him, and his water is plentiful.” The secret of God is upon his tabernacle, the Almighty is with him, and his children are around him. He washes his steps with butter, and the rocks pour out rivers of oil for him. His root is spread out by the river, and the dew lies all night upon his branch; his glory is fresh in him, and his bow is renewed in his hand. He is blessed in his going out and in his coming in; he has the blessings of heaven above, and of “the deep which lies under.” He is like Job; the Lord has put a hedge around him, and all that he possesses. Now, truly, he can say, “I know the love of God for me, for I can see it. I can see a gracious providence pouring forth out of the cornucopia of providence, — an abundance of all that my soul can desire.” This, however, might not completely convince him of God’s love if it were not that he has also a consciousness that these things are not given to him as husks are cast to swine, but they are bestowed on him as love tokens from a tender God. His ways please the Lord, and therefore he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. The man at such a time has a joyous spirit; when he reads the Scripture it is one great transparency from beginning to end; when he meditates upon its pages it is like a bracelet set with the rarest jewels. He goes about his Master’s service, and the Lord makes him successful. He sows and he reaps, he ploughs, and the furrows team with plenty; the sower overtakes the reaper, and the reaper overtakes the sower. God gives him many harvests in a year. The work of his hands is established, and his labour of love is accepted. The Lord has made him exceedingly rich, he has blessed him, and his cup runs over; he has all that his heart can desire. “Now,” he says, “I know the goodness of God.” This, truly, is very easy work, and yet easy though it is, we ought not to forget that we have had such seasons, we have had many trials, but, in the desert of our trial, we have had sometimes an oasis like this; we can look back to some sunny place when we could say, “Surely the arms of love are around me both temporally and spiritually.” “He has set me upon a rock, and established my goings.” Then the Christian knows the love of God.
9. Another time in which he knows his Father’s love happens when he sees it after coming out of affliction. He has been extremely sick, and while he has been on his bed he has been vexed with anxious thoughts concerning those he might leave behind, or even about himself. In the hour of languishing he cried to the Lord for deliverance; and at last he felt the young blood leaping through his veins anew. New health was restored to him, and he trod the green grass again with light, elastic steps, singing, “The Lord has heard my cry, like Hezekiah, and has lengthened my days. Now I know the love which God has for me.” Or else he has incurred great losses in business. One after another the curtains of his habitation were torn, the cords were cut in two, and all the tent pins pulled up by the invading enemy; he thought at last that nothing would be left for him, “Surely I shall die in poverty,” he says, for bankruptcy stares him in the face. But immediately the tide is changed, the keel of his ship almost grated on the gravel, but now it begins to float, and boldly he spreads his sails, and gallantly he rides the billows; now he can exclaim, “I know the love that God has for me.” He has brought his servant out of the horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and has again appeared to me in mercy and chased away my doubts and fears.
10. So also has it been with many a man when he has for years been labouring under a heavy trial and at last escapes from it. Look at old Jacob. I believe that all his life long he would have put in a demurrer against what I have just declared; that is that this is a summary of Christian experience. He would have said, “No, young man, I tell you it is not; my experience has been one of trouble and trial ever since I left my Father’s house.” And we could tell him the reason for it too, if he particularly wished to know. But surely when at last he put his aged arms around the neck of his son Joseph, when at last he saw him ruler over all Egypt, and when his two grandchildren were brought to kneel before him to receive his blessing, the old man might have reversed what he said and no more have exclaimed, “Few and evil,” but “Now I know the love that God has for me.” As it was he did end his life with a song, and finished by praising the angel who had blessed him and kept him from all evil. Even Jacob is no exception to the great rule — that the life of God’s people is a proof of the text. “We know and believe the love that God has to us.”
11. There are other ways in which God’s children know