By The Rev. CHARLES G. FINNEY

Modernized by Cliff Collins

“God is love.” (1 John 4:16)

It is not my intention, in commenting on these words, to prove that they are true, for I consider myself poorly qualified to attempt to prove the truth of any passage of Scripture. It is not so much the business of the minister of the gospel to defend the truths of the Bible, as it is to expound and illustrate those truths, as he finds them revealed, and to show the importance they have on the relations and responsibilities of men. It would be easy for me to advance many arguments, drawn from the whole range of God’s created universe, to show that “God is love”; but I will not do this today. I shall simply:

I. Show what is the meaning of this passage.

II. State some things that must be true if ‘God is love’.

I. What is the meaning of the words of this passage?

1. By the statement that ‘God is love’, I don’t believe that the Apostle John is telling us that the nature, that is, the essence, or substance of God is love. This would be an absurd proposition. Nor is God love in the sense that He is fond for His creatures. In other words, I don’t believe this love is merely some kind of a feeling of love. This kind of love would be an emotional love rather than a willful love, or a voluntary love. This kind of love would belong to His emotions, rather than to His will.

2. I don’t believe that this passage teaches us that the nature or substance of God is love. This passage does not say that His nature is supremely devoted to doing good; or that all His powers are consecrated to promoting the highest good of beings that have feelings and emotions. The Apostle John, by the strong language of this passage, surely is not trying to say that the nature or the substance of God is love. But, John only meant that God’s character or His voluntary, that is His willful state is love, and that God’s unselfish willful love is infinite. John meant that God’s unselfish love, constitutes all of God’s behavior. In other words, God’s will is to love all of His creation with an infinite love, and that God’s character is constantly and eternally loving, not loving at one time, and selfish at another time; but loving forever and without change. I could dwell on this longer but let me move on to:

II. State some things that must be true if ‘God is love’.

1. If it is true that ‘God is love’, it follows that He has been eternally ‘love’, otherwise His character is subject to change, which is impossible.

2. If ‘God is love’, He only has one intention. He has only one reason for His conduct; that is, He aims at only one thing. That one thing is love. As a result, His character is simple. In other words, if His ultimate goal in everything He does is to love His created universe by doing what is best for His universe as a whole, it must follow that He always acts in view of this one great goal. God’s goal is to promote everything that He can love unselfishly, or to promote the good of everything that exists in the universe.

3. If ‘God is love’, He never has done, and never will do anything, but execute His loving intentions unselfishly. There is a difference between the love of God, and the executive willful acts of God. His love is one thing, and the things that He does to execute His love, is something else. God loved us from eternity past, but He has not acted in executing His loving plans from eternity past. He has not eternally put forth creative power from eternity past, for if He had done so, there would be things that He created that would be as old as He is, which is impossible.

Therefore, the will of God has always been in a state of pure unselfish love; but developing, or manifesting that love, is what He did in creation, and He is still manifesting that love today. Now, God has never done, and will never do anything that will not tend to realize the objects of His love. He will never do anything that will not accomplish anything His heart is set on. In other words, everything that God has done, and everything that God will ever do, is towards executing His grand purpose, which is, promoting the highest good of everything that exists.

4. If ‘God is love’, it follows, that, as long as God remains a God of love, He can do nothing else but execute His loving intentions. He will only do what must result from a mind that loves everything He has created as much as He loves Himself. Everyone is naturally aware that this must be true. A plan or an intention produces an action; therefore, that action can never be inconsistent with its corresponding intention. If I intend to go directly home, I cannot go in the opposite direction, or loiter along the way. I can relinquish my intention, but as long as my plan is the thing I have my mind fixed on, I must act in obedience to that plan. Now, as long as God remains a totally unselfish God of love, He can only act in obedience to a plan to create a universe that He can love with an infinite love. Everything that God does must execute His loving purpose. Since God is a free moral agent, He can stop loving, of course: but as long as He remains loving, He cannot stop acting in love.

5. If ‘God is love’, it follows that He has omitted nothing, and can omit nothing that would, on the whole, result in the highest good of everything that exists. God is infinitely wise. Therefore, God can never make any mistakes. Good men, who willfully choose to love their neighbors, cannot act inconsistently with their purpose to love their neighbor; but because they have finite intellects, they may make mistakes and errors while they are doing their duty. While intending to advance the highest good of the universe, they may be wrong about the best means they could use to promote this goal, and so, what they do may accidentally turn out to be harmful. However, this is not true with God. His infinite wisdom does not allow Him to make any mistakes. As long as He remains a God of love, He will do, and can do nothing that is inconsistent with His great goal. Therefore, it follows, that God never has, and He never will do anything that is inconsistent with His great goal; and that as long as He remains a God of love, He never can fail to do anything which would advance the highest good of everything that exists. It is naturally impossible for Him to do anything that is not in the best interests of the universe. He must either cease to be infinitely unselfish, or He can do nothing that is inconsistent with the highest good of all creation, nor can God leave anything undone that the good of the universe requires.

6. If ‘God is love’, He has and will not allow anything to happen that would harm or damage the universe, that He could prevent by His attributes. Please understand this thoroughly. I say, then, that if God’s almighty power, under the control of infinite wisdom and infinite love, can prevent the existence of anything that will harm the universe, God will prevent it from harming the universe, of course. If God is love, it follows as a self-evident truth, that He has prevented, and will prevent, as far as He wisely can, the existence of anything that would work ultimate injury to the universe.

7. If God is love, He must have created the universe in obedience to the law of unselfish love; because His creative acts result from His own unselfish love. His creative acts are only the results of the unselfish state of His heart. As a result--

8. God created the universe as soon as He wisely could. It would have been naturally impossible for God to create the universe from the beginning of eternity, for then the first creatures that He created would have to be as old as He is. But, He did put forth creative power as soon as His plan of universal unselfish love allowed Him to create the universe, taking into account His own character and plans, and the prospective character of those whom He was to create. And,

9. God created the universe as rapidly as He could create it and still be consistent with His plan of universal unselfish love. Not only did He begin His work as early as He wisely could, but when the work began, He carried out His work as rapidly as His unselfishness would allow.

10. If ‘God is love’, He has created as many worlds as His infinite unselfish love demands. He has not left out one world, nor has God made one world more or less, than the law of infinite love requires.

11. He has created just the right kinds and the right verities of beings, and endowed them with the precise powers and abilities that His infinite wisdom saw were consistent with the accomplishment of His plans to create a universe and to administer His government in love to accomplish what is best for the overall good of all His created beings.

12. If ‘God is love’, He has done, and will do, as much to promote the happiness of His creatures as He possibly can. Had He done, or should He do, more or less for the happiness of his subjects, than He has done, and will do, His love would not be perfectly unselfish. He would become a wicked being. But because He is love, no one can accuse Him of neglecting his duty to his creatures. As a result -

13. God has done, and will do, as much to prevent the misery of His subjects, as the good of the universe will allow. If God truly loves unselfishly, or if God is truly a ‘God of love’, what I have just said must be true. Many people seem jealous, if someone places a limit on the power of God; while, at the same time they manifest little concern, whether or not His moral attributes, His justice, and His love are limited. They seem to think that God might, if He wanted to, prevent all misery, no matter what caused that misery. Now this is a false assumption, because if God’s love is a perfect love, He must be doing, right now, all that He can consistently do to prevent the misery of His creatures. It is naturally impossible for Him not to do this and still remain a God of love. If He falls short of this, He will no longer be a perfectly loving being. How can a man unselfishly love his neighbor with all his heart and not do all the good he can possibly do to benefit his neighbor who he loves with all his heart? What is true unselfish love, but willing to accomplish all the good that lies in our power?

14. If ‘God is love’, He has done, and will do, all that He can wisely do to prevent moral beings from sinning. God has never allowed one sin to be committed, which He could wisely prevent without violating the unselfish love He has for His whole universe as a whole. God has never allowed anyone to commit one sin that He could wisely prevent without acting selfishly. He has never allowed anyone to commit one sin, which He could prevent without sinning Himself. Do you think that what I have just said is strange? But, isn’t it true? And, isn’t it better for God to allow someone else to sin, rather than sin Himself? Moreover, God has never allowed anything to exist that is inconsistent with the perfect holiness of His subjects, if He could wisely prevent it. He has never allowed any temptation to draw His creatures from their path of duty, which He could prevent without violating the law of love. Now, isn’t this obvious? If God is love, isn’t it certain that no sin or temptation ever existed that He could wisely prevent? Under existing circumstances, if God did any more than He has already done to prevent sin, He would have sinned Himself. This is obvious; for if God is love, and His love is willful and unselfish, He never could have omitted any effort to prevent sin, if that effort would have been consistent with the best interests of the universe. Therefore, if God did more than He has already done to prevent sin, He would no longer be a sinless being.

15. Because God is love, He has made every sacrifice on His part that He could possibly make, to promote the highest good of everything that exists. “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.” (I John 4:10) Yes, God did not even hesitate to give His Son, His only Son, to die for us. He had no daughters, no other children, but only one Son. You, who are parents, know how strongly a father becomes attached to an only child; while, if he has several children, he does not concentrate his love and affection with great intensity on any one of them. But, if he has an only child, he prizes that child as his greatest earthly treasure. He would rather see his property swept away, his buildings torn down, and all his earthly goods destroyed, than agree to give up his darling child. Now listen. God did not hesitate to give up His only Son to be a ransom for many; and after He has gone that far, won’t God be ready to make any reasonable sacrifice for the good of His creatures? I tell you, yes! If it would be wise, God would willingly send his Son to earth to die for us every year. He would die a thousand times Himself, if it were possible, and if God’s perfect love demanded it. When God sees that a sacrifice on His part, no matter how great that sacrifice is, is the lesser of two evils, He will not hesitate to make that sacrifice.

16. If ‘God is love’, He has created all things as well as He possibly could. The question is often raised, “how could God have made this thing and that thing, and why did He make it just the way He did? Now notice. If God is love, He has done the best He could do in creating the universe. He has established the best relationships and founded the best laws that He possibly could have made, to govern His creatures. If you want a beautiful illustration of this truth, just look at yourselves. God made us in the very best way possible; and if we ever desire to find fault with the way we our physically or mentally constructed, all we have to do is examine ourselves, we will be compelled to agree that God has done His best in creating us. God has placed all our organs and faculties in just the right place. And if we look away from ourselves, we will see, that in establishing the physical laws of the universe, laws which direct all its movements, laws which order the seasons, laws which order day and night, God has done as wisely and as well as He possibly could. He does not leave His work half done, nor does He do it slothfully; whatever God sets Himself about to do, He does in the best possible way.

17. God has governed the universe as well as He possibly could. Not only has He created moral beings well, but He has also governed them well. Not one single hour, since He first put forth creative power, has He failed to control the universe in the best possible way!

18. It does not follow from the fact that God is love, that there will not be a lot of, but incidental, evil always existing somewhere in the universe. Where there is sin, there must be misery. There are also many natural evils, which are the result of the way the universe is arranged. But this misery, and this evil, do not invalidate the character of God, nor are these evils inconsistent with the character of God. They are only incidental evils that result from accomplishing His great plans as a God of love. He created the universe because He pursued these plans; and He attached to the universe laws to regulate its movements. Let me say again, that certain incidental evils have resulted from the creation of the universe, which God made in the best possible way. But listen. They are only incidental to a plan that is laid out in the best possible way that God’s unselfish love would allow. It does not follow, then, that because God is love, great and incidental evils must not exist in the universe, nor that they will not exist throughout eternity, nor that new forms of evil, unknown to us, but known only to God, will not make their appearance. However,

19. It does follow from the fact that God is love, that, as a whole, creation will result in greater good than evil. God was infinitely wise from the beginning. Now had He seen that creation would result in more evil than good, He could not have ordered it. Therefore, we may be certain, that the evil will never equal the good that will result from creation, but that the evil that is in the universe will fall infinitely short of the good that will result from the creation of the universe.

20. It is also certain, that a majority of God’s creatures will be happy. It is certain that the number of those who are happy will greatly outnumber the number of those who are miserable.

21. There is no chance that the majority of the inhabitants of any world, except in hell, will be eternally miserable. I say that it is unreasonable to believe that more evil than good will result to any world, where God has placed moral beings on trial. If this were not true, that in every world God has created, the amount of good that resulted from creating that world, would equal or exceed the amount of evil, how, I ask, could God be a God of love, and what proof could we have of His benevolence in such a creation.

22. If ‘God is love’, it follows that God hates whatever is inconsistent with the highest good of His universe. Of course, He abhors all sin, and all sinners; and He is opposed to all the selfishness in the universe, and to whatever His law forbids. If God is truly a God of love, He is clearly sincere when He commands His subjects to be holy; and He commands His subjects to be holy with all His heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. It is a necessary part of His character to be more pleased with holiness than with sin.

23. It also follows that God will exercise any degree of severity, which is needed, on those who rebel against His law. He will not hesitate to execute vengeance on those who engage in iniquity. We have countless examples in this world, of the sternness with which God carries out the principles of His government. How often are men and families, yes, even nations, overwhelmed and crushed beneath the mighty wheels of this vast machine. With sincere firmness, God carries out His plans in love. His government of the universe will go on, and whoever stands in the way of it, will be ground to powder, it doesn’t matter whether he is an angel from heaven, or a fiend from hell. The same is true in this moral world. If an individual willfully throws himself in the way of the execution of God’s plans, God will surely let him fall, even if that person is a great and mighty king of Israel, even if that person’s fall will be the occasion of dire ruin to the church and the world. Yes, God even let David fall. It was better that God should allow the King of Israel to fall and the tale of His crime be told from Dan to Beersheba, through heaven and through hell. I say it was better that God should let the wheels roll over and crush His chosen king, rather than let the train of His moral government grind to a halt for even one moment. And, what God did to David, He does in a thousand other situations in the administration of His moral government. Yes, He will even let Peter deny his master, and the whole church apostatize from the true faith, rather than change the plans of His moral government. And the reason why He does this is because His pure unselfish love in infinite, it is because He is firm in the execution of His wise plans, and because He is moving the great concerns of His government forward on a vast scale, a government that was created with the best interests of the subjects of His government in mind.

God will not shrink from sending the wicked to hell, any more than from taking the righteous to heaven, for both acts are parts of God’s same great plan. It is indispensable to His peace of mind that He should do this. I repeat, that God could never be satisfied with His own conduct, if He did not send the wicked to hell, as well as take the righteous to heaven. Both acts result from the same great principle of love to His created beings; a principle, which, seated in the heart of God like an infinite volcano, bursts forth on every side. On the one hand, this principle of love scatters death and damnation among the inhabitants of hell, and on the other hand, it casts the smiles of love over the dwellers in heaven. Yes, this love is the same love that heaves up from the very depths of His infinite mind. God is always carrying out the same unselfish plan, which, on one hand, it consigns the wicked to hell, and on the other hand, it takes the righteous to heaven.

24. If ‘God is love’, He is equally good and equally deserving of praise, no matter what He does. If there are any situations where He appears more virtuous than in other situations, they are those situations where He must sacrifice His own feelings, and sacrifice the strong affections of His nature, in order to inflict merited punishment on the wicked. But, because God is a God of pure unselfish love, He always has one intention, and that intention is unselfish. The same infinite wisdom always guides Him. Therefore, His virtue is always one and the same. He can never diminish His virtue, and He can never increase it. Strictly speaking, we cannot base God’s virtue on the things that He does, but only on His one eternal consecration to the good of all creation. It is clear then, that God is equally worthy of praise at all times, and for everything that He does. That is why He requires us to give thanks at all times. “In everything give thanks”, Paul says, “for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you”. (I Thess 5:18) Those who think that they must praise God when He performs certain acts, but only tolerate Him when He performs other acts, are greatly mistaken. A good example of this is the common thought that God is more merciful under the gospel than He was under the Old Testament legal dispensation, and therefore He is more worthy to be praised now than He was back then.

This false notion comes from an ignorance of the fact that God exercises all the attributes of His character in everything He does. Therefore, the different phases of His acts, all have the same moral character, because His character belongs solely to His intention, and His intention, which is to do everything for the best overall interest of the whole universe, results in all His acts, all His mercies, and all His justice. His virtue lies behind everything He decides to do. Everything God does flows out of the vast fountain of pure unselfish love that lies within Him.

25. If ‘God is love’, it follows that He will do for every one of His creatures, everything that He can wisely do. He will not only do this for the universe as a whole, but He will also do it for each one of us. Yes, He will do just as much for every individual creature in His universe, as He can possibly do under existing circumstances. He has been doing this since the dawn of creation, and He will continue doing this. If God were to do any more or any less for our good, than He is doing right now and will do, He would commit sin. This is the conclusion that we must come to if it is true that 'God is love.'

26. If God is love, He will do all the good through us that He wisely can. He will not let one single hair of our head fall to the ground, for the lack of doing all the good through us that He can possibly do under existing circumstances. What do you think of that? I tell you that not one sinner will go to hell, if God can wisely use us to save him.

27. What God can wisely do for us and through us, must depend mainly on the course we pursue. I did not mean by what I have just said, that God could not do more for us and by us, if the circumstances were different. I merely meant to say that He has done all that He could, considering the course we have taken, and the course we plan to take today. If we act differently, God will act differently. If we had done better than we did, God would have made us wiser and better than we are. So the amount of good that we do, must depend entirely on the course we pursue. God may have done far less for each one of us, than He would have done, if we had acted differently towards Him.

28. God is always doing the best for us and for all those around us, that He can possibly do under the circumstances. However, by the exercise of our free will, we can so vary the circumstances, that we could force God to either change His conduct, or cease to be a God of love. Isn’t this clearly true? It is clear that God must act differently towards us in the different circumstances that we place ourselves into. Now take the situation of a sinner. Let’s say that the sinner repents and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Won’t God immediately change His conduct towards him? Suppose that former sinner dedicates his life to do good to others; won’t God help him and make him an instrument of doing infinitely more good, than he would have done if he had remained a rebel against God? The fact is, we may limit the goodness of God towards others in a thousand ways; because what God does for an individual subject of His moral government, largely depends on the voluntary free wills of those people who come into contact with that individual.

REMARKS.

1. We now can see why complete faith and confidence in God is a duty. Faith would not, and could not be a duty if God was not a God of love. Faith would not, and could not be a duty if God was not a God of wisdom, or if God was not the kind of God that the scriptures say He is.

2. If ‘God is love’, it follows that anything that is inconsistent with perfect confidence in Him is infinitely wicked. Therefore,

3. Anything like murmuring against God’s providences must be very sinful.

4. Can you now see why universal and perfect obedience to God is a duty? If God were not love, obedience to Him would not be a duty. If God did not base His laws on infinite unselfish love, God could not require us to obey them. But, since God is love, and since He framed His laws with the love of His entire universe in mind, we are required to obey Him, and rejecting His laws is rebellion against the good of the whole universe.

5. Today’s passage gives us a clue to the correct interpretation of the entire Bible. We must make everything contained in the Bible consistent with God’s perfect and pure unselfish love. Since the Bible announces the fact that God is love, we must explain everything in the scriptures by the light of that truth.

6. Now we have a key that will help explain God’s providences. We often hear people complain, “why did God do this, or why does God do that? Why did He afflict me that way?” Now the answer to such questions is obvious. It is because the laws of unselfish love demanded that God did what He did. So of all the movements of divine providence and grace, whether they result in suffering or happiness, they are all done for one and the same reason, which is, that the best interests of the universe requires those acts of providence and grace.

7. God’s pure unselfish love creates no foundation for anyone to conclude that God promises universal salvation. It is no more reasonable to conclude from the love of God, that misery will not exist in a future world, than it would be to conclude from the love of God, that there will be no more misery in this world. It would be just as unreasonable to say that pain does not exist at all, as it would be to say that it will not exist throughout all eternity. But, we can correctly say that misery will have no power over the holy and the good in a future state. We stand on firm ground when we say this, but we have no authority from reason or revelation, for saying that some great and incalculable evil cannot exist in some part of the universe throughout all eternity.

8. To my own mind, a powerful objection to many doctrines that are so popular today, concerning the second coming of Christ, is based in the fact that God is love. I cannot see how it can be consistent with the unselfish love of God to destroy the world right now. As far as we know, and this fact is not disputed by anyone who believes in the doctrines of Christianity, that a great majority of those who have inhabited the earth, have gone to hell. Now God saw this from the beginning. Could God be a God of love and ordain the destruction of the world under such circumstances? The response that “men are free, and can escape hell or not as they please, and therefore God is clear of their blood”, is not good enough. Suppose that there was only one world in the whole universe, and that God had peopled it with beings who would certainly be eternally miserable, even if their misery were the result of their own free will and even if God had done his best to prevent their misery.

Let me ask you, would God have any right to make such a world? No way, unless He saw that creating that world would result in enough happiness to Himself, to overbalance the misery of the creatures that are placed in such circumstances. Now what would we think of God‘s love, if at the present time, and under existing circumstances, He destroyed this world? We must judge the character of God, by how He deals with us. We are told very little about what God does in heaven. We are not told whether other planets, moons, or other solar systems are inhabited. Therefore, we must judge the character of God by what He does here on earth. Please remember this, and let us remember that when God created this world, He had full knowledge of everything that would result from its creation. And if, foreseeing that nine tenths of its inhabitants would be eternally miserable, that a vast majority of those who have peopled it would go to hell, if, I say, in spite of all this, God had determined to wipe the world out of existence now, when all or the most of the results have been evil, could we consider Him as a God of love? You can’t answer this question, by saying that we do not know how much good God will accomplish in other parts of the universe, by destroying the earth right now. As I just said, we must judge the character of God by how He deals with us here on earth, not by what He does in other parts of the universe. We know nothing about what goes on in other parts of the universe. As far as we can judge, greater evil than good has thus far resulted from the creation of this world, and if God should sweep it out of the universe right now, could we possibly believe God created the earth in our best interests? If God is love, how can it be that the great majority of the human race today is eternally damned?

9. The fact that God is a God of love appears to me to be a most valid argument in favor of the doctrine of an earthly millennium, the result of which will be the conversion of the majority of the people on earth. No other doctrine, as far as we can tell, is consistent with Gods pure unselfish love. God tells us to reason with Him, and judge His character for ourselves. Now let us reason with God. So much does the doctrine of an earthly millennium harmonize with the unselfishness of a God of love, that the mere announcement of the fact that He is love, seems to announce to us loud and clear, that God is still moving forward in this world with His great unselfish plans. The fact that God is love tells us that He is going forward from conquering to conquer, and that the time will come when all shall know the Lord, from the least unto the greatest.

I love to dwell on the character of God in this light. I love to think of God, not merely as the creator of the universe, but as the great and good governor of all things, who can stoop to put His mighty hand in to the basic affairs of earth, and turn, and overturn, until His benevolent plan in creating the earth is fully accomplished, until the majority of men come to be His obedient subjects, while those who are damned will stand as monuments to warn the universe of the dreadful effects of sin. What! Shall God be defeated in His plans? Is it indeed true, as some claim, that the tendency of things on earth goes backward? If that is true, how sadly was Christ wrong, when He compared the kingdom of heaven to leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measure of meal until the whole loaf became leavened! (See Matt 13:33) Some sincerely tell us that Christianity is dying out on earth, that the meal is killing the leaven, instead of the leaven leavening the lump. Now God forbid that the tendency of His government should be receding. What! Shall the God of the universe, the creator of all things, because the tide of earthly things is rolling back on Himself, and thwarting His mighty plans, crush the world, bury it in everlasting destruction, and send its teeming millions off to hell! No! If this is true, we are left to the dim light of concluding that, for some inscrutable reason, God created such a world as this.

I don’t say that God would not have a good reason for destroying the world right now, but I do say that if such a reason exists, He would make it known to us in some way. But, when we open the Bible, we find the truth, that God is love, standing out on every page, like the sun breaking through an ocean of storms, and by its light, we can travel through all the dark sayings of scriptures, and through the mysterious workings of Providence. The Bible is a key, which we may use to unlock the plans of God, and learn that this world was created to aid in accomplishing the good of the universe, and that it will not be destroyed until its work is fully done.

10. If God is love, there is no favor too great for Him to bestow. No one has to say that he is too insignificant a creature for God to bless, for God is always ready to bestow the greatest blessings on all of us all as soon as He possibly can, no matter what our condition may be. God comes close to us, and takes every opportunity to do us good. We cannot open our mouths before He is ready to fill it. There is no need for us to starve. There is no need for us to wait for God to come to our relief, because God is always close by. If He withholds spiritual blessings from us, we can conclude that the difficulty lies with us, not with Him.

Let me say to those of you here today who are impenitent sinners, that if you eventually make your bed in hell, you, and not God, will be to blame. And to you who claim that you love the Lord, if you don’t have as much grace as you feel you need, if your experience of heavenly things is cold and barren, be assured that you, and not God, are at fault. He is continually crying in your ears, “All things are now ready, please, come in and sup with me”. He is always pressing on you with all the weight of infinite love, seeking for some nook or corner in your heart, where He may come in and fill you with all the fullness of His Son.