Parkland Lodge Service

The Love of God

This afternoon, I’d like to share with you about the third verse of a hymn and how the hymn came about: It’s called: The Love of God

Could we with ink the oceans fill

And were the skies of parchment made

And every stalk on earth a quill

And every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above

Would drain the oceans dry,

Nor could that scroll contain the whole

Though stretched from sky to sky

Frederick M. Lehman, author and composer, wrote a pamphlet, in 1948, entitled History of the Song, The Love of God. It tells about the origin of this beloved hymn—

While at camp-meeting in a mid-western state, some fifty years ago in our early ministry, an evangelist climaxed his message by quoting the last stanza of this song. The profound depths of the line moved us to preserve the words for future generations.

Not until we had come to California did this urge find fulfillment, and that at a time when circumstances forced us to hard manual labor.

One day, during short intervals of inattention to our work, we picked up a scrap of paper and, seated upon an empty lemon box pushed against the wall, with a stub pencil, added the (first) two stanzas and chorus of the song.

Since the lines (3rd stanza from the Jewish poem) had been found penciled on the wall of a patient’s room in an insane asylum, the general opinion was that this inmate had written the epic in moments of sanity.

Actually, the key-stanza (third verse) under question as to its authorship was written nearly one thousand years ago by a Jewish songwriter, and put on the score page by F.M. Lehman, a Gentile songwriter, in 1917.

Personally, I’ve only seen and dipped my feet in the Atlantic Ocean, when I was in Liberia in 2017. I can’t even begin how much water there is in the ocean, but the love of God is above and beyond what we can even measure.

1 John 4:7–12 NIV

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

1 John 4:19 NIV

We love because he first loved us.

I just want to tell you today that we love you, and we love because God first loved us. We are so thankful that we can come to see you in person and be in the same room as you.

Janice felt the nudge to pick songs and Scripture about love. We have sung about God’s Love.

John 3:16 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

There was no price that was too high for God. God sent His only begotten Son. At Christmas, we sing about this Child that came and was born in a Manger in Bethlehem.

We sing of the great love of the cross. “Oh the love that drew salvation’s plan. Oh the grace that brought it down to man. Oh the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free. Pardon there was multiplied to me. There, my burdened soul found liberty, At Calvary.”

God loved you so He sent Jesus. God is for you. He is not against you.

Romans 8:31–39 NIV

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If you have never received Jesus as Lord and Saviour, He wants nothing more than to have relationship with you. That’s the story of the cross!

He wants nothing more than for us to ask Him into our lives. Would you pray with me?

“Lord be merciful to me a sinner. Please come into my life. I declare with my mouth that you are Lord and believe that God raised you from the dead. In Jesus’ name. Amen”

If you prayed in faith, Jesus just came into your life. You can talk to Him at any time and let Him know what you are going through, and what you are feeling. He is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

Closing song and prayer and benediction.