“There is a startling story in France that speaks of the love of God, a love that will never let a sinner go.
It was told that a young man, much loved of his mother, pursued a wicked course that took him deeper and deeper into sin. He became enamored of an evil woman who dragged him further and further into unrighteousness.
The mother naturally sought to draw him back to a higher plane and the other woman resented it bitterly.
One night, the story goes, the evil woman chided the man with an accusation that he did not really love her.
He vowed that he did.
She appealed to his drunken mind, saying, that if he loved her he would rid them of his mother and her pleadings.
According to the story, the young man rushed from the room to the nearby home in which his mother dwelt, and dealt her death blows, tearing her heart from her body to carry back to his paramour.
Then comes the climax of the tale. As he rushed on in his insane folly, he stumbled, and fell, and from the bleeding heart there came a voice, “My son, are you hurt?”
That is the way God loves you” (Donald G. Barnhouse, Romans, Vol. 1).
From the cross of Calvary Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
Charles Wesley has sung of the love of God on one of his greatest hymns in 1740.
“Depth of mercy! Can there be
mercy still reserved for me?
Can my God His wrath forbear?
Me, the chief of sinners, spare?
I have long withstood His grace:
long provoked Him to His face;
would not hearken to His calls;
grieved Him by a thousand falls.”
