  Even Ephesus, the Christians that were blessed with Jesus’ life and death, that experienced Pentecost, lost their love. Philadelphia regained it, but in Laodicea only Jesus had it. And Laodiceans were not very fond of His love associated as it is with rebuke and chastening. Our society is preparing to persecute the most loving people since Jesus. And it will all be done in the name of love for Jesus. At the head will be Satan preaching love and tolerance. Buckle your seat belts for the ride ahead. While everybody talks about love, nearly everybody hates it.  

Even Ephesus, the Christians that were blessed with Jesus’ life and death, that experienced Pentecost, lost their love. Philadelphia regained it, but in Laodicea only Jesus had it. And Laodiceans were not very fond of His love associated as it is with rebuke and chastening. Our society is preparing to persecute the most loving people since Jesus. And it will all be done in the name of love for Jesus. At the head will be Satan preaching love and tolerance. Buckle your seat belts for the ride ahead. While everybody talks about love, nearly everybody hates it.

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South Bay SDA Church

Phil Mills

Everybody Talks About Love, but Nearly Everybody Hates It

Our Bible study this morning, as Pastor Chris told you, is entitled, Everybody Talks About Love, But Nearly Everybody Hates It.

The book Great Controversy tells us that even Satan loves to talk about love, and people love to listen to Satan talk about love.

I quote Great Controversy 553, he, that is Satan, enlists the affections by his eloquent portrayals of love and charity.

I repeat, although everybody loves to talk about love, even Satan.

And nearly everybody is confused about love.

They actually believe they love when they really despise it.

Please turn to the well-known passage of Scripture in Matthew 5, Matthew chapter 5.

This is part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' ordination sermon before his disciples.

But before we read the scripture, I'm going to kneel and pray.

You can sit, ask the Lord to bless us as we study his word.

Dear Lord, I pray as we open and study your word that you'll draw near to us, that your spirit will inspire us with the meaning that's directly applied to our case.

And I pray that we may be changed by a vision of Jesus this morning.

We'll be looking at verse 44 of Matthew 5.

Many here this morning can probably say this verse, or at least portions of it.

There's a great deal in this verse, but we're going to start by just looking at 1 word in the verse.

Everything else hangs on this 1 word, and yet this 1 word is too often demoted by another word in the verse that seizes the focus.

The word we're looking for is not hiding.

It begins with the letter L and it has 4 letters.

Please tell me the 1 key word in this verse of Matthew 544.

Last month we were down in Orlando And my wife and I were taking a walk.

We passed by a home in the neighborhood that had a large rainbow-covered flag.

It was in the yard, and then on the flag, it had various phrases, but the biggest letters were a first phrase right at the top.

Listed underneath the phrase love is love were other phrases.

Black lives matter, climate change is real, woman's rights are human rights, immigrants make America great, kindness is everything, but I've been thinking about that very first phrase.

Well, love may be love, but what is love?

While preparing for this Bible study on love this week, I read about 1 of the Beatles, Ringo Starr, because this month I was surprised to find he was still alive.

Ringo turned 80 years old and celebrated a birthday and had a birthday party but because of COVID-19 his birthday party was zoomed and 1 of those who attended the birthday party was a reporter from Rolling Stones magazine not surprisingly the Beatles song all you need is love was sung for his party.

The Rolling Stones reporter described the celebration as an hour of peace and love.

Satan talks about it, musicians sing about it, entertainers talk about it, Banners proclaim love is love.

Is it surprising that Jesus would talk about love?

No, Jesus is God and God is love, 1 John 4, 16.

We should notice something about the sentence that this verse is in.

What part of speech is the word love in this verse?

What 2 elements does an English complete sentence always have?

There isn't any, So that means it's a imperative.

That is, the only kind of proper and complete sentence in the English language that doesn't have a subject and a verb is an imperative.

And what does that mean about the subject?

The subject, you, me, it's taken for granted and an imperative is always a command.

Do this, meaning I'm to do this, or do that, meaning I'm to do that.

So this verse is not simply advice, even good advice, this verse is not simply a suggestion or even a good suggestion.

In this verse is a command, a demand if you will, because Jesus, the ruler of the universe, is issuing a command to humans, love.

And this is just a portion of the command that Jesus has issued regarding love.

He has issued other portions of his command elsewhere in the New Testament.

He commanded us to love God, Matthew 22, 37.

He commanded us to love 1 another, John 13, 34.

He commanded us to love your neighbor, Matthew 2239, and through Paul Jesus has commanded husbands to love their wives, wives to love their husbands, and even commanded mothers to love their children.

Let's briefly look at Jesus' command to love God and love our neighbor before returning to Matthew 5, 44.

Jesus' command to love God is very complete.

Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul or being, and with all your mind.

Love for God requires all of the heart's affections, all of the soul's desires, and all of the mind's attention.

Only those who have love for God with all their heart, love for God with all their soul, and love for God with all their heart, love for God with all their soul, and love for God with all their mind, have love for God, and have received sufficient love for God to keep his commandments." Quoting from the end of the second commandment, Jesus said in John 14-15, if you love me, keep my commandments.

Our love for God is not shown by our expressions of love from our lips but by our actions toward God by our lives my little children John said let us not love in word or in tongue but indeed and in truth those who love God finish the sentence with me keep his commandments Those who don't keep his commandments don't love him no matter what they say about love People may talk about love, but they don't desire love they actually hate love Because they don't want to keep God's commandments Romans 8 7 the carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be lawlessness and love are polar opposites Jesus said because lawlessness will abound he was speaking of the end of time, the love of many will do what?

We either love God and keep his law or we ignore God's law and lose our love for him.

The Bible also reveals that the love the world talks about is a counterfeit love, actually forbidden by God's Word.

1 John 2, 15, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

Sinful man loves the world, and sinful man loves the things that are in the world.

This is the love the worldly musicians sing about.

This is the love that entertainers talk about.

But when we love the world and the things that are in the world, we show that God's love is not in our hearts.

James 4.4, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God.

Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

But let's move to Jesus' command to love our neighbor.

Please turn in your Bibles to Leviticus 19, Leviticus chapter 19.

Just as Jesus' command to love God is very complete with all our hearts, with all our soul, with all our mind, so his command to love our neighbor is very complete.

Leviticus 19, 18, you shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of your people but you shall love your neighbor as yourself I am the Lord when we love our neighbor as ourselves we don't seek to get even with them for something they have done to hurt us and people don't carry grudges for something they have done to hurt us people hate love because they want to revenge they hate love because they want to carry around a grudge everybody talks about love but nearly everybody hates it but let's return to Matthew 544 because there's a major problem with this verse Jesus commands us to love love God love your neighbor love 1 another can you really command love Would it help my marriage if I told my wife, Sherry, I demand that you love me?

Would such a command increase or would it decrease my wife's love for me?

How can Jesus demand that we love each other how can Jesus command us to love our neighbor there is a large difference between God's commands and our commands.

God's commands create, empower, and enable.

When God commands, let there be light, what happens?

And when God commands let there be love love is created just as I am unable to create or originate life I am unable to create or originate love but what I am unable to create or originate by my effort Jesus creates and originates by his word his command to love is a promise that he will give us the very love we need.

He will give us the love that loves God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind.

He will give us a love for our neighbor that keeps us from wanting to revenge or carry a grudge.

All his biddings, Christ Object Lesson 333, are enablings.

Look closely at the first word of Matthew 544 while I read the first words of Luke 627.

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Everybody Talks About Love, but Nearly Everybody Hates It

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