ter
were once more united.

But let me tell you that no mother's love is to be compared with the
love of God; it does not measure the height of the depth of God's
love. No mother in this world ever loved her child as God loves you
and me. Think of the love that God must have had when He gave His Son
to die for the world. I used to think a good deal more of Christ than
I did of the Father. Somehow or other I had the idea that God was a
stern judge; that Christ came between me and God, and appeased the
anger of God. But after I became a father, and for years had an only
son, as I looked at my boy I thought of the Father giving His Son to
die; and it seemed to me as if it required more love for the Father
to give His Son than for the Son to die. Oh, the love that God must
have had for the world when He gave His Son to die for it! "God so
loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John
iii. 16). I have never been able to preach from that text. I have
often thought I would; but it is so high that I can never climb to
its height; I have just quoted it and passed on. Who can fathom the
depth of those words: "God so loved the world?" We can never scale
the heights of His love or fathom its depths. Paul prayed that he
might know the height, the depth, the length, and the breadth, of the
love of God; but it was past his finding out. It "passeth knowledge"
(Eph. iii. 19).

Nothing speaks to us of the love of God, like the cross of Christ.
Come with me to Calvary, and look upon the Son of God as He hangs
there. Can you hear that piercing cry from His dying lips: "Father,
forgive them; for they know not what they do!" and say that He does
not love you? "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends" (John xv. 13). But Jesus Christ laid
down His life _for his enemies_.

Another thought is this: He loved us long before we ever thought of
Him. The idea that he does not love us until we first love Him is not
to be found in Scripture. In 1 John iv. 10, it is written: "Herein is
love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son
to be the propitiation for our sins." He loved us before we ever
thought of loving Him. You loved your children before they knew
anything about your love. And so, long before we ever thought of God,
we were in His thoughts.

What brought the prodigal home? It was the th