This month’s message began with one of my favorite verses in the Bible: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee on the palms of my hands…” (Isaiah 49:15-16).
To me, this verse showcases the superlative nature of the love and faithfulness of God for His children. It also contains two words that in Hebrew share the same root: COMPASSION and WOMB which is also translated MERCY in the Old Testament.
Hebrew, the language Jesus spoke, is one of the few that was originally written in “word pictures.” The pictures later became letters and the Hebrew alephbet has 22 letters, many close to the English alphabet. Each letter represented both a sound and a picture, and a word was formed by adding pictures together. (Also, in ancient Hebrew the vowel sounds were spoken but not written, so when we look at a word picture we will only discuss the consonants.)
Most Hebrew words (verbs especially) have a three letter root. When we examine their word pictures, we often find an underlying meaning. Such is the case for mercy and womb from RECHEM in Hebrew. Without the vowels, its three letter root is RESH, CHET, MEM. Let’s see what their word pictures mean:
RESH is the picture of the profile of a man’s head and means a head or a person.
CHET (pronounced ket) is the picture of a fence and means a fence or to surround or to protect.
MEM is the picture of waves and means water.
When we put the pictures together, we have the amazing definition of WOMB—a person surrounded and protected by water! And not only that, when God wanted to define what MERCY means, He used the same word! On a human level, there is no greater love or compassion than that of a mother for her child, even still unborn. Nevertheless, God said that even this kind of love can fail. We have seen this with millions of abortions in the U.S. alone in the past 40 years.
The love of God transcends all human love. He spoke in Jeremiah 31:3: “…Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” The Hebrew word for love in this verse is AHAV and means “the Father’s heart revealed.” There is nothing you or I could do to make our Father love us more; nor could we do anything to cause Him to love us less. His love is not predicated on our actions, because it is His quintessential nature. 1 John 4:87 says, “God is love.” It does not say that God is faith or power, or wisdom; although He is all of these and indescribably more. But His main attribute from which all else flows is His merciful, gracious, generous, unsearchable, inexhaustible, irreducible love!
The only thing that can temper God’s love is His unwavering righteousness. Those who refuse His truth refuse His love: “…Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10). God has no other alternative but “to damn all who believed not the truth, But had pleasure in unrighteousness” (vs. 11). In order for anyone to go to Hell, he must trample underfoot the love of God and harden his heart against His mercy.
God Knew You in Your Mother’s Womb!
The Father’s love for us is far greater than any we have ever known, and His thoughts toward us are precious and plentiful! (Psalm 139:17). David also wrote in Psalm 139 that God knew us when we were in our mother’s womb, and His eyes saw us when we were yet unperfect: “For thou hast possessed me…. covered me in my mother’s womb” (vs. 13). Not only that, but He wrote down in a book His blueprint for our lives. God has a plan for every person’s life, but He can only implement it to its fulfillment if we cooperate with Him. God also said through Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (a hope for the future).
The thing that sets Christianity apart from every other “religion” in this universe is the love of God and the personal, intimate relationship it presents to all who will receive it through the Love Gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. Unlike other religions, this faith is not fear-based. John not only told us “God is Love,” and that “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts our fear: because fear hath torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18). God’s love for us is perfect even though we are imperfect. His love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, His love never fails” even when we do (1Cor. 13:7-8). This is supreme love!
“We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
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