God Is Love, So He Speaks to Us in the Language of Love

God Is Love, So He Speaks to Us in the Language of Love

1 John 4:7-11 – “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten son into the world, that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we 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.” Consequently, God speaks to us in graphic images, using the language of our most intimate relationships – Husband & Wife, Parent & Child.

Jeremiah 31:31-33 – “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah – not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. .. I will put My law I their minds, and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

Ezekiel 16:1-14 – “Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your birth and your nativity are from the land of Canaan. .. As for your nativity, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you. You were not rubbed with salt nor wrapped in swaddling clothes. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you; but you were thrown out into the open field. And when I passed by you, and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ Yes, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I made you thrive like a plant in the field; and you grew, matured, and became very beautiful. Your breasts were formed, your hair grew, but you were naked and bare. When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love! So I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine. Then I thoroughly washed off your blood and anointed you with oil. .. I clothed you with fine linen and covered you with silk. .. You ate pastry of fine flour, honey, and oil. You were exceedingly beautiful, like royalty. Your fame went out among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through My splendor which I had bestowed on you, says the Lord.”

Many times in the Old Testament, God describes extreme pain as like the pangs of a woman in childbirth; and many times He compares human infidelity through idolatry to adultery. When we abandon our love of God for the worship of created things, it is like an unfaithful woman who leaves her husband for another man. Sexual sins – adultery, harlotry, sodomy – are condemned throughout the Bible.

The multiple, egregious sins of Samaria and Jerusalem are compared at length to the lascivious fornications of twin sisters in Ezekiel 23. Through the Biblical examples of the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel by Sennacherib of Assyria and the destruction of the Southern Kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, we find a warning for modern America -- “When a nation sins against Me by persistent unfaithfulness, I will stretch out My hand against it.” (Ezekiel 14:13) * But God always preserves a remnant, offers hope, and demonstrates His deepest love: “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 18:23, 32 & 33:11 * repeated three times for emphasis)