welcome to this episode of real Christianity my name is Dale Partridge reach week I offer 15 to 20-minute answers to tough the illogical and pastoral question this is 100% listener supported audio Ministry of relearn. Org and for those who don't know our mission a tree learn.org is to educate and equip ordinary Christians to plant biblical confessional and missional house churches for more information just visit relearn. Org forward slash house
 welcome to real Christianity my name is Dale Partridge as you know you can find the show notes for these episodes a tree learn.org our mission a tree learn.org is to bring Christians back to the Bible we are fighting for biblical literacy today's episode we're talking about a topic that I think many Christians have misunderstood him or answer the question does God really love everyone and obviously that's a loaded question and we're going to get to the specifics and particulars about what scripture has to say about the multi-dimensional definition of God's love but before we begin I just wanted to make a few quick announcements some of you who follow me on social media
 our account had to relearn. Org on Instagram or on Twitter at Dale Partridge may have noticed that we are moving and we lived in Oregon for the last seven years and have made a decision to relocate for mostly health reasons my body as you guys know we've been following along I have been struggling with Lyme disease and mold toxicity for several years in the middle of a flare-up and the last several months here and the cold is not a friend to Lyme disease and mold toxicity it tends to be very difficult and hard my body had mostly seizure activity has occurred when the temperatures are in the fifties or below so we are looking to relocate to warmer weather
 and for I've been closer to family as well so we have decided to move from Bend Oregon to Arizona and after living recently in our fifth wheel we moved when we didn't move we we drove around looking for places to move to and we spent three months or nearly three months in our fifth wheel which is 375 square feet with three children and a and a dog and we returned home and realize that we just had too much stuff I had some ways it revealed maybe even a poor stewarding of our resources may be some issues in our hearts with materialism and even a struggle with modesty as we kind of had a fairly large property we just had a different Outlook in perspective having spent so much time almost 100 days and such small
 orders and it was I remember my kids getting out and running into the rooms we got home and all the toys are coming out and I didn't know where the kids were cuz they were you know one is playing out in the backyard one was way upstairs and I was so used to having them within almost Arms Reach and I just wanted to gather them all up thrown back into the fifth wheel and drive away
 and we can do that we we needed to sell a property and manage all those details and so we we have now moved we just recently left our home and we're on the road back in our fifth wheel I'm actually recording this episode with our mobile Studio that I built out for us to work on the go and we will likely be in this trailer for maybe even a year as we build a new house down in Arizona and so the reason I'm saying all this is who we are in transition and you guys might have noticed that this podcast usually comes out in the morning is coming out in the afternoon there's just been a lot of moving pieces and spinning plates and I'm trying to make sure that we keep the wheels on the wagon so our hope is to yes travel a little bit in the season
 between I did have to step away from the church that I had passed her for over three years which brought tears and in sorrow as well as joy and the new season that they are embarking on and excited about helping other House Church Planters if we travel across the country and get a chance to spend some time and the great state of Arizona so that's one big enough for the second thing I wanted to mention is we are now enrolling in are enrolling for the 2020 to January 2022 class for reformation Seminary this is our online and in-person a one-year program for House Church Planters we have a group start last January a group start this June and this would be group 3 that starts we like to keep it around 10 to 20
 didn't we already have about seven or eight and rolled we would love for those of you who are called the ministry and feel called to plant a Biblical House Church and want to be trained it's a very intense missionary style training program not as intense as maybe a full four-year Seminary program but it is a really wonderful and rigorous program we'd love to have you apply I just going to Reformation Seminary.com okay ask for this episode was really inspired by a few things not only the scripture that will be discussing today but also on the theological teachings of dr. r.c. Sproul and his book God's love add subtitle is how is the infinite God cares for his children
 and where my favorites which is just a small like I think maybe a 90-page book is by D A Carson titled the difficult doctrine of the love of God
 and both of these books display what the scripture claims on love and that is really God's love is multi-dimensional for example there's a sense by which I personally love all women in this world but I do not love all women the same way I love my elect Woman My bride Veronica my special love
 for Veronica is actually made stronger in my willingness to restrict it just to her alone
 and what I'm saying here is that I actually have a discriminatory love that demonstrates my favor and my commitment to Veronica and my opposition to sharing that love with other women and that this is obviously a parallel to Christ love for Humanity and his love for the Bride of her his bride which is the church and it's actually you can break down God's love into several categories in these books do so but in this episode and for the sake of Simplicity I'm just going to break down God's love into two basic categories which is his common love and his special love there are theological categories for this for those that are studied or trained and I understand that but I'm trying to make this
 attainable and palatable and accessible for those who haven't had deeper theological study so God's common love
 can you can sometimes be related to Common Grace is really not how we would Define love in our culture it's God's common love is a generalized Good Will toward mankind benevolence may even be a better term to use I think of scriptures like Matthew 5:45 that says for he makes that is God for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust or Psalm 144 1 45:9 says the Lord is good to all and his Mercy is over all that he has made it so again there needs to be some clarifying terms here but Louis berkhof who wrote a wonderful Systematic Theology years ago to find
 this common love is common Grace as quote those General blessings such as rain and sunshine food and drink clothing and shelter laughter and emotion which God imparts to all men indiscriminately where where and in what measure it seems good to him and quote
 so calm and love again I think these are almost synonymous terms with common Grace also includes the restraining of sin and keeping of civil order to maintain and complete the secular timeline that operates in tandem with God's Redemptive plan in other words if God hold his
 common Grace from the world and removed all of his regenerated children from The Earth Society would quickly crumble but God has a plan by which he continues and allows a a version of History to move on functional history that again generally Pleasant to Mankind and not common Grace so that he can produce a timeline
 for his Plan of Redemption
 meaning that the Lord allows the current state to go on
 basically as the means and he's using this as his way to redeem his children there are more Christians to be born and to be born again and the Lord is permitting time to continue on waiting for that last believer there will be a last believer who comes to know Christ and is born again before the Lord returns and in that time that were in in the middle while we're waiting for Christ's second Advent
 the Lord restrained evil and he allows us to laugh and to love and to all people to experience you know sex and and some of the great things that come with life the fact that we are the perfect distance from the Sun and it's not burning us up that we have air to breathe and and that it's not difficult to eat food or whatever it maybe these are common Grace elements are common love that we see from God is benevolence toward Humanity
 on the other hand
 a special love as r.c. Sproul says is
 directed to first to Christ and then to all who are in Christ so we have the common love and I want to talk with this special love and again not quote from r.c. Sproul is Special Love is directed first to Christ and then to all who are in Christ and meaning this type of love is not for all people
 but only for his elect
 and this love is manifested centrally by the grace of regeneration by the Holy Spirit right to be born again it's the just you know to be justified by faith in Christ and receive the free gift of eternal life in other words basically like marriage Special Love is manifested in consummated by us becoming one with Christ. That's really the difference between common loved and special love it's this Oneness with Christ we get to be in Christ
 and that's really a beautiful display of the special love and this is important because we live in a soft culture and church who wants to make all things palatable in fear of offending someone and we need to remember that one of the names of Christ in scripture is the rock of offense and so before we go out to tell everyone that God loves you without qualifying and defining that love we should also look to what the scripture says about what God hates
 and the scriptures tell us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and we need to have a fear of God the God creator Almighty the judge the one we must answer to and that's fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and we need to understand that God hates sin and outside of Christ we are sinners
 and outside of Christ a person is under his wrath and his judgment and not under his special love and mercy that we have obtained through Christ again. This is this is vital because it can we live in a culture and a church who says things like God loves all people unconditionally or that God loves you just the way that you are or that we're all children of God at dust these are misleading statements and at worst there straight up lies and so we need to talk about briefly what does God hate we know what God loves our culture's really good at talking about the love of God in the passages of scripture usually out of contacts but we know what they are but what does God hate
 Psalm 11:15 says the Lord test the righteous but his soul hates the wicked
 that that's a really strong word Soul there in the Hebrew means like this very innermost being of God abhors the wicked
 and he hates not only the wicked actions but the text says that he actually hates the wicked people themselves
 and in a world where people say God hates the sin but not the center-right r.c. Sproul famously responded that by saying if God hates the sinner all right if God hates only the sin and not the Sinner and why does the bible say that he sends the sinner to hell
 and that's an important statement when people say God hates sin but not the sinner will know he hates the sin and the sentence and he sends the sinner to hell
 I'm in this is important content for where I'm going Psalm 145:20 says the Lord perseveres or the Lord the Lord preserve's all who love him
 but all the wicked he will destroy
 Luke 13 27th or 28th Jesus says depart from me all you evildoers
 I think goes on to say that the they will be sent to a place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
 Tim challies the great reformed blogger at challies.com challies in an article he wrote titled God hates Wicked people he said God hates their ways Proverbs 15-9 their thoughts Proverbs 1526 their worship Proverbs 15 innate their actions Proverbs 16:18 and their evil Deeds Psalm 55
 so yes
 God has a general love for benevolence or Goodwill toward Humanity but God does not love you just the way you are I know God loves you so much that he won't allow those he saves to stay who they are and this is why they must be born again this is why they must repent and turn away from their evil ways and the life they once lived this is why they're called to crucify the flesh as it would say in a Galatians 2:20 this is why we must be made new to become New Creations and this is why we must become not like ourselves but become like Christ
 and this is the key Point here so before you tell someone outside of Christ about God's love and change The Narrative of his biblical view of sin and sinners be sure you also tell them about God's hatred for evil his wrath against those who will not repent and his judgment and punishment for those who refuse to believe and trust in his son Jesus Christ and why is this matter you've heard me say this several times over the years the good news of the Gospel is only good to those who understand the bad news that is the good news is only good news because there's bad news but we often forget what the bad news is and we often leave it out in our evangelism efforts because we don't want to offend someone
 but without the bad news the good news is of no effect kid the cure for cancer is of no need to the man who refuses to believe that he has cancer but the cure for cancer to the man who hears and believes that he's terminally sick and going to die
 that's the greatest news that he can ever hear
 so this is vitally important in the way that we talk about love especially talking about God's love for us God's love in the common sense God's love in the special sense we need to understand that there is good news for those who repent and believe in Christ we need to know that there is bad news for those who refuse to repent and Trust In Christ Alone we need to understand God's absolute hatred detesting of sin and sinners
 as they represent Rebellion against him a holy and righteous King
 it's all I'm going to close with just a short reading
 of Jesus talking about a parable in Luke 7
 he says and Jesus answered him
 Simon I have something to say to you and he replied to say it teacher
 a money lender had two debtors OneNote 500 denarii and the other 50
 when they were unable to repay he graciously forgave them both so which of them will love him more
 Simon answered and said I suppose the one he forgave more and he said to him you have judged correctly this is a really wonderful illustration an example about the one who understands
 the
 magnitude of his sin in light of a holy God when we study the Holiness of God which r.c. Sproul wrote the book The Holiness of God if you have not read it you must when you understand the Purity and the Holiness of God and you compare it to who you are
 in your
 unrighteous state in terms of we are still we are Saints who sin
 and we have not fully been redeemed yet we have not had our new bodies we've not been brought in a glorified state but we are Saint to sin and when we understand how much we've been forgiven
 we appreciate the debt
 so much more appreciate the debt being paid so much more and so this needs to translate over into our Evangelistic efforts is that we don't want to hide how much debt they are in toward God we don't want to minimize the consequences the Wrath of the judgment to come the fear that they should have of the lord we don't want to minimize those things we want to speak truthfully about them in love
 and present the gospel as the remedy the only remedy
 before experiencing mercy and forgiveness
 and when we do this the good news is so much sweeter and it produces what the bible promises to produce we don't need to persuade or convince we need to speak the gospel speak the truth and faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ be faithful to that gospel narrative and watch the Lord Open Hearts and Grant repentance to those who believe
 thank you guys for listening to this episode for those who don't follow along on social media you guys can follow us on Instagram at relearn. Org on Facebook a trailer. Org as well you can follow me on Twitter just at Dale Partridge trying to produce content almost everyday for you guys there as well if you guys are regular listener and you have not left a review for this podcast we would appreciate that you could just have to stars in your podcast app or you can write something I think we have over 5,000 reviews on this podcast and it really does help the exposure of the show and I do read every single review they are very encouraging to me regardless if they are corrective regardless of if they are difficult but most of you guys to set such a kind things and they have really encouraged me to continue on to thank you so much for those and lastly again if you're interested in planting a Biblical house
 I would like to be trained what that looks like we would love to talk to you at Reformation Seminary, you can hit the apply Now button on the website thank you so much for joining me here on this episode of real Christianity my name is Dale Partridge and I'll see you next week
 thank you for listening to this episode of real Christianity if your regular listener to this show would you personally consider making a donation to support our ministry efforts simply visit relearn. Org forward slash donate again that's relearn. Work for donate and for those looking to explore the idea of joining or planting a church in your home you can download our free pdf ebook titled the basics of biblical House Church by visiting relearn. Org forward slash house last week do you have a theological question you would like answered on the show submit your question at relearn. Org forward slash question thanks for joining us on this episode of real Christianity we will see you next Wednesday