Book Reviews

Puritan Book Reviews – Preacher of God’s Word
Reviewed by Dr. C. Matthew McMahon

Preacher of God’s Word
by Christopher Love
Soli Deo Gloria Publications, Morgan, PA: 2000
178 Pages, Hardback.

Everything I have ever read of Christopher Love is phenomenal. This book is no exception. It is a series of sermons on different topics ranging from “Christ’s prayer the Saint’s Support,” to “Directions Concerning Immoderate Joy for Worldly Comforts” to the series of sermons on “Wrath and Mercy.” In his sermons on “Wrath and Mercy” Love gives 4 sermons on this topic, each in his usual style of exposition, doctrine and application. They are hearty and full of life, and death for some.

I was very moved by his sermon on “Directions Concerning the Nature of Sorrow.” Here he expounded 1 Cor. 7:30, “Brethren, the time is short; it remaineth therefore that they that weep, be as if they weep not.” He speaks to the heart about suffering and afflictions and the disposition of the Christian under these difficult trials.

The sermons cover the following texts: John 17:15; 1 Thess. 5:21; 1 Cor. 7:30; Acts 16:30-31; Luke 11:28; and 4 sermons on 1 Thess. 5:9. The volume is a spiritual garden of delights for anyone interested in knowing the Lord Jesus Christ in am ore intimate way.

Some Quotes:

“You must hate no man as he is your enemy or does injury to you, but as he is God’s enemy you ought to hate him, and to rejoice at his destruction.” (Loves Emphasis)

“Excessive sorrow for worldly crosses provokes God, many times, to send heavier and greater afflictions than ever yet you suffered.”

“Above all things in the world, the most needful thing for the sons of men to make inquiry after is what they must do to be saved.”

“Though a man may know and ought t know that he is elected and appointed by God to obtain salvation, yet he ought not to know, nay, he cannot know that he is appointed unto wrath. A man may make his election sure, but he cannot make his reprobation and damnation sure.”

“If God has, all your life, withdrawn the efficacy of His Spirit from His ordinances which you have enjoyed, when you shall perceive the same man that sits in the pew with you in God’s house to grow better and better by every ordinance, and you grow worse and worse; he is made more holy and you more profane; his heart more tender, and sensible of the least sin and yours more hard and inflexible; his conscience more awakened and apprehensive of the danger of sin and yours more stupefied and benumbed; he finds the Word of God as marrow and fatness to him, the joy and rejoicing of his heart, but you find no sweetness or relish in it at all, this is a sign of reprobation.”