Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3220
“A time to love.” Ecclesiastes 3:8.
IF you will look at our text, dear Friends, you will see that it is very ominously followed by the words, “and a time to hate.” We are changeable creatures and we live in an ever-changing world—and this Chapter gives an accurate summary of how most of our lives are spent! “A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.” Ours is a checkered life. We are not long in any one state and we quickly change from one condition to another—which is sometimes better, but sometimes worse.
I am not going, however, to speak about these earthly variations, but about something that is of a far higher order. And I intend, first, to apply the text to Christ’s love to us, for He had “a time to love.” And then, secondly, to apply it to our love to Him, for we, also, have “a time to love.”
I. First, then, concerning CHRIST’S LOVE TO US, for He had “a time to love.”
Go back with me in thought, Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, to the council chamber of eternity. God ordained that Adam, the great representative of the human race, would fall in the time of testing and that you and I and all mankind would be ruined by his fall. In His far-seeing vision, He perceived all of us going astray like lost sheep and then arose the necessity for the appointment of a Deliverer to rescue us from going down into the Pit. No angels had been created, then, and even though they would be, not one in all the shining ranks, nor all of them combined, could have saved a single soul! The Savior who would be sufficient to accomplish this colossal task must be Divine. Then was it with Christ “a time to love,” and He came forward and entered into an Everlasting Covenant with His Father on His people’s behalf. Let us never forget that eternal council chamber where Christ undertook to be our Surety and Substitute and, in due time, to die for us, “the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”
Now let your thoughts fly onward to that period when the fullness of time for the birth of Christ had come. Will Christ leave His throne, His Father’s house, the company of the holy angels and the spirits ofjust men made perfect? Yes, that He will, for it is with Him now, once again, “a time to love.” Stripping Himself of all His bright array and laying aside all His Glory, He comes down to Bethlehem’s lowly manger and there I see Him lying in His mother’s arms, just as any other infant might have done, though He was so wondrously unlike any other child that was ever born! Having become Incarnate and having come to live here on earth, it was absolutely necessary that a perfect righteousness should be worked out on behalf of His people. But in such a wicked world as this was then, and still is, this could only be accomplished through shame, reproach, rebuke and slander of the most abominable kind! Does someone ask, “Did He endure all that?” Yes, that He did, for it was with Him, “a time to love.” He could truly say, “Reproach has broken My heart,” yet He willingly bore it for His people’s sake. The tongue of slander assailed Him so that even His miracles were attributed to satanic agency. On the Cross, He was to reach the lowest depth of shame and to be “despised and rejected of men”—yet He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem—well knowing all that would befall Him there.
His death upon Calvarywas, indeed, “a time to love,” for having loved His own, He loved them even unto death! But did the Immortal bow His head to mortality? Did the Eternal hang in agony upon the accursed tree? Yes, that He did, for it was with Him, “a time to love,” and many waters could not quench His love, neither could the floods drown it. Come with me, you who truly love Him, and whose hearts leap with joy as you think of His Glory—come with me and see Him in His shame and suffering! There is your Lord and Master, of whom you have often sung—
“Crown Him, crown Him, Crown Him Lord of all”—
yet look at Him now! You will not wonder to see Him so emaciated as you remember the agonies through which He has already passed. There was that dreadful night in Gethsemane when His griefs and woes were so terrible that His soul was exceedingly sorrowful even unto death and His sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Then there was His betrayal by Judas, the forsaking by all His disciples, the denial by Peter, the mockery of trials before Annas and Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod, the scourging and the spitting and all the unknown agonies that He had to endure! Ah, Beloved, we talk very calmly about all this, but what must it have been for Christ to suffer thus? Why, a little pain soon lets us see what cowards we are—a little spittle from slanderous tongues drives us almost to despair! We cannot endure much for our Lord’s sake, but see how much He endured for our sake! Listen to Him as He applies to Himself the prophetic language of David in the 22nd Psalm—“I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint: My heart is likes wax; it is melted within Me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd and My tongue cleaves to my jaws; and You have brought Me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed Me: the assembly of the wicked have enclosed Me: they pierced My hands and My feet.” Surely, now it is with Him, “a time to love.” Our sins are piled upon Him in a tremendous load that would crush anyone else—and that makes even Him to cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” This was the love of which Charles Wesley sang—