Love’s Foremost

“Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him most?” ().

I. We Must First Be Saved in the Same Manner as Others.

The road to eminence in love is just the plain way of salvation, which all who are in Christ must travel.

1. All are in debt; we must heartily own this to be our own case.

2. The loving Lord forgives in each case: personally we have exceeding great need of such remission. We must feel this.

3. In each case He forgives frankly, or without any consideration or compensation; it must be so with us. We must accept free grace and undeserved favor.

II. We Must Aim at a Deep Sense of Sin.

1. It was the consciousness of great indebtedness which created the great love in the penitent woman. Not her sin, but the consciousness of it was the basis of her loving character.

2. It is to be cultivated. The more we bewail sin the better, and we must aim at great tenderness of heart in reference to it. In order to cultivate it we must seek to get—

A clearer view of the law’s requirements (, ).

A deeper consciousness of the love of God to us (, ).

A keener valuation of the cost of the redemption (, ).

A surer persuasion of the perfection of our pardon will also help to show the baseness of our sin (, ).

III. This Will Lead to a Highly Loving Conduct Toward Our Lord.

1. We shall desire to be near Him, even at His feet.

2. We shall show deep humility, delighting even to wash His feet.

3. We shall exhibit thorough contrition, beholding Him with tears.

4. We shall render earnest service; doing all that lies in our power for Jesus, even as this woman did.

A spiritual experience which is thoroughly flavored with a deep and bitter sense of sin is of great value to him who has had it. It is terrible in the drinking, but it is wholesome in the bowels, and in the whole of the after-life. Possibly much of the flimsy piety of the day arises from the ease with which men reach to peace and joy in these evangelistic days.

We would not judge modern converts, but we certainly prefer that form of spiritual exercise which leads the soul by the way of the Weeping-cross, and makes it see its blackness before it assures it that it is “clean every whit.” Too many think lightly of sin and, therefore, lightly of a Savior.

He who has stood before His God, convicted, and condemned, with the rope about his neck, is the man to weep for joy when he is pardoned, to hate the evil which has been forgiven him, and to live to the honor of the Redeemer by Whose Blood he has been cleansed.

Bold blasphemers ought to be enthusiasts for the honor of their Lord when they are washed from their iniquities. As they say, reclaimed poachers make the best game-keepers, so should the greatest sinners be the raw material out of which the Lord’s transforming grace shall create great saints.

•I have heard say the depth of a Scotch lake corresponds with the height of the surrounding mountains. So deep thy sense of obligation for pardoned sin, so high thy love to Him Who has forgiven thee.

—C.H.S.

•Love to the Savior rises in the heart of a saved man in proportion to the sense which he entertains of his own sinfulness on the one hand, and of the mercy of God on the other. Thus the height of a saint’s love to the Lord is as the depths of his own humility: as this root strikes down unseen into the ground, the blossoming branch rises higher in the sky.

—William Arnot

C.H. Spurgeon

What’s Happened to Love?

About a well-known encyclopedia discussed the word “atom” with the use of only four lines. But five pages were devoted to a discussion of “love.”

In a recent edition of the same encyclopedia five pages were given to the word “atom”; “love” was omitted.

C. H. Spurgeon, Sermon outlines for evangelistic services, 1992, 38–39.