We just spent a month enjoying the amazing hospitality found in Branson, Missouri. (Shout out to our new friends Ken and Pastor Danny and all the wonderful folks at Grace Family Church!) One of the “Branson” experiences was watching “A Lifetime of Impact – Greg Laurie interview with Chuck Smith” on YouTube. Lots to chew on there. (You may know part of their story from the 2023 film “The Jesus Revolution”.) The interview closed with Chuck Smith singing “The Love Of God”. What a treasure! I wanted to sing it, too! I hope you feel the same. I sampled his and several other versions, and found it has been sung lots of different ways, from slow and somber to brighter and lighter. I had to choose a style, and so I offer this, suited to a happy day. Please give it a sing-along listen and then join me back here for a chat about the song.
God is love
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (1 John 4-7-12 ESV)
In telling about God’s love, this song expects us to know some things from the Bible. The song’s first verse introduces “the guilty pair”, referring to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden after the Fall (Genesis 3). Through guilt and shame they are described as “bowed down with care”. The lyrics artfully emphasize that God did not wait a long time before promising redemption was coming. He already had a plan, and He let Adam and Eve … and the serpent … know of it. The song was able to offer more details than He revealed at that time back in the Garden. The verse uses its limited space well, and says “God gave His Son to win; His erring child He reconciled, and pardoned from his sin.” Notice that neither God nor this first verse left people long waiting for good news.
When man’s ways are not His ways
Verse two of this song tells of a time when men — here, God rejectors — refuse to pray and, instead, seek to escape the wrath and judgement of God by calling on mountains to fall on them. We find this in Revelation 6 — “And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!” (NKJV). Jesus brings up the same picture in Luke 23: Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then “‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!” For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry? (NIV). (Both may have been quoting from Hosea 10:8, and a reasonable case can be made that all three were referring to the destruction of Jerusalem that occurred in A.D. 70. Whatever the time, God has, does and will offer a way out, and desires people take it.)
How beautifully this song brings us back to God’s nature and character. The second verse includes this: “God’s love so pure shall still endure, all measureless and strong; redeeming grace to Adam’s race …”
Anyone remember how John 3:16 goes? Wonderful!
♫♪ Could we with ink the ocean fill ♫♪
Regarding the third verse, Hymnary.org offers this: “The first two stanzas are Lehman’s [the song writer’s] own work. The third, by his own account, he heard in a camp meeting sermon. They were apparently lines “found written by a demented man on the wall of his narrow room in the asylum where he died”; those words are a translation of an Aramaic poem, “Haddamut”, written ca. 1050 by Rabbi Meir of Worms, Germany. From the Qur’an (31st Sura) from the early 7th century there are these lines:
If all the trees on earth were pens,
and the ocean were ink,
replenished by seven more oceans,
the writing of God’s wonderful signs and creations
would not be exhausted;
surely God is All-Mighty, All-Wise.“
We can agree there is a LOT of good news. And to publish it all would take a whole lot of ink.
Luke 8:1 is a great place to round out this chat about a wonderful song celebrating God’s love:
“Soon afterward he [Jesus] went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, …”
Jesus and others brought the good news of the kingdom of God. Let that be our main topic, too. Recently I heard a TV preacher raise a great point — that talking very much about what the enemy can do or is doing is NOT the same thing as bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.
Let’s remember the lesson of Caleb and Joshua and the other ten spies shortly after they crossed the Red Sea on dry ground and they had their sights set on the Promised Land. The ten said they could not go in because they saw the size of the enemy. Joshua and Caleb said they COULD go in … because they saw the size of their God.
Very different views … very different results. Let’s think and act like Caleb and Joshua, men who wanted to get to the promised land (and who finally did get there!). Let’s major on talking about the good news of the kingdom of God. A great place to start is to share the love of God.
God bless you lots!
-Dale R.
LYRICS – The Love Of God
Text: Frederick Martin Lehman (1917)
Tune: Claudia Lehman Mays
1. The love of God is greater far
than tongue or pen can ever tell;
it goes beyond the highest star,
and reaches to the lowest hell;
the guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
and pardoned from his sin.
Chorus:
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure:
the saints’ and angels’ song!
2. When years of time shall pass away
and earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
when men who here refuse to pray,
on rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so pure shall still endure,
all measureless and strong;
redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
the saints’ and angels’ song.
3. Could we with ink the ocean fill
and were the skies of parchment made,
were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill
and ev’ry man a scribe by trade,
to write the love of God above
would drain the ocean dry;
nor could the scroll contain the whole,
tho’ stretched from sky to sky.
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