Put This Love Of Old Up Against Those Who Talk Much Of Love Today

“Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, And teachest him out of thy Law…” – Psalm 94:12

Just recently, I saw another popular preacher, who drives the same false gospel as the others driving the same leavened narrative (Mark 8:15; Galatians 1:8), talking about the love of God.

Love seems to be the popular message of many of these 1960s hippie hirelings occupying the pulpits in America today (John 10:12).  What’s worse is that they know nothing of the love of God (Psalm 78:9).  After all, holding God’s love that has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost (Romans 5:5), who has been given unto us, hates what He hates and loves what He loves (Psalm 97:10; Romans 12:9).

Furthermore, that love of God fulfills His Law, the Law that these despise (Amos 2:4).

“To the Law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” -Isaiah 8:20

Just look to their fruit, the lawless society that they have raised up over the last 65 years, and they're still tolerated among those who sit in their pews.

How contrary to the preachers who were so used by the Lord to establish the very foundations of this country, which are quickly being effaced.  Only if the congregants would look to those who have gone before them, they would then clearly see the truth of what is being written here (Hebrews 13:7).

Thomas Brooks (1608-1680) was one such example.

I would that the reader take note of the love in which he wrote, and consider it in contrast to what you see in the present (Jeremiah 6:16).

Thomas wrote:

“Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, if by outward afflictions thy soul be brought more under the inward teaching of God doubtless thy afflictions are in love.

All the chastening in the world without divine teaching will never make a man blessed, the man that finds correction attended with instruction and lashing with lessoning is a happy man if God by the affliction that is upon thee shall teach thee how to loathe sin more, how to trample upon the world more, and how to walk with God more.

If thy afflictions are in love, if God shall teach thee by afflictions how to die to sin more, and how to die to thy relations more, and how to die to thy self-interest more, thy afflictions are in love.

If God shall teach thee by afflictions how to live to Christ more, how to lift up Christ more, and how to long for Christ more, thy afflictions are in love.

If God shall teach thee by afflictions to get assurance of a better life and to be still in a gracious readiness and preparedness for the day of thy death thy afflictions are in love.

If God shall teach thee by afflictions how to mind heaven more, and how to be fit for heaven more thy afflictions are in love.

If God by afflictions shall teach thy proud heart how to lie more low, and thy hard heart how to grow more humble, and thy censorious heart how to grow more charitable and thy carnal heart how to grow more spiritual, and thy forward heart how to grow more quiet thy afflictions are in love.

Where God loves He afflicts.

In love and wherever God afflicts in love, there He will first and last teach such souls such lessons as shall do them good to all eternity.

If you enjoy the special presence of God with your spirits and your affliction, then your affliction is in love. Hast thou a special presence of God with thy spirit strengthening of that stilling of that satisfying of that cheering and comforting of that in the multitude of my thoughts that is of my troubled intricate and snared intertwined and perplexed thoughts as the branches of a tree by some strong wind are twisted one within another as the Hebrew word properly signifies thy comforts delight my soul here is a presence of God with his soul here our comforts and delights that reach the soul here is a cordial to strengthen the spirits.”